Participants during the training workshop.
Doha, Qatar: The Journalism Program at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies (DI) organised a training workshop titled “Journalistic Sources and Interviewing” on Sunday.
The workshop was delivered by former BBC journalist Dima Hamdan, who has extensive experience in journalism and media training.
The workshop, running until September 22, aimed to strengthen students’ practical skills in three main areas: developing ideas for news stories, cultivating sources and building trust with them, and enhancing journalistic interviewing skills.
The workshop focused on practical application, with students preparing proposals for real news stories and discussing their relevance, significance, and feasibility.
In this context, Dr. Basem Tweissi said that the workshop is part of the program’s efforts to strengthen students’ practical skills and bring field journalism and newsroom experience into the classroom.
He noted that this year’s short training workshop series includes a number of other topics, most notably the use of artificial intelligence in journalism, solutions journalism, and strengthening journalistic writing skills.
For her part, Dima Hamdan emphasised the workshop’s practical approach to developing and applying journalistic skills, noting that this contributes to preparing students for the job market.
“The workshop includes a range of exercises, as well as difficult questions for which there may not always be clear answers. This mirrors the experience of journalists in the field when they are faced with challenging situations,” she said.
The workshop was offered to the first- and second-year students in the Journalism Program, with a limited number of places also made available to students from other programs in the School of Social Sciences and Humanities.
This helped foster interaction across academic programs and broaden students’ exposure to professional journalism expertise across different fields of study.
The workshop also saw active engagement between the students and the trainer, with students asking questions and taking part in in-depth discussions on best practices in media related to the topics covered.
The initiative is part of the Journalism Program’s efforts to train students and build their capabilities by bringing professional experience into the classroom and strengthening the practical dimensions of the educational process.
