Supporting Democracy and Peace-Building through Investigative Journalism in Nepal

Description What is done in the programme or project and why, what results are pursued, who benefits from the activities and who are involved in the implementation.

Supporting Democracy and Peace-building through Investigative Journalism in Nepal has been a two year project (2010-2011/12), jointly implemented by CIJ Nepal and Vikes Finland. Investigative journalism is the extreme need of the country where corruptions, bad governance, conflict, marginalization of people are the common phenomena. Despite some individual’s effort, an effective investigative journalism is still missing in the media. Well-researched, in-depth and explorative reporting is necessary to promote quality debate on national agenda including the discussion on democratization, peace-building and governance in Nepal. With this broad concept, the first project trained about 50 mid-career journalists to produce well-researched and in-depth stories on various aspects of peace-building and democracy and to publish them in local, regional or national media. in 2012 gate-keeper journalists were sensitized to IJ. The second part of the project will take the training from Kathmandu to eastern, far-western and mid-western parts of the country. The overall objective is to increase and widen the field of investigative journalism. The intermediate objectives will be similar to earlier efforts • Refresh and enhance the skills of journalists in investigative journalism, which is key to increasing the quality of the debate in the media • Produce a quality content that will “raise the bar” for all media in Nepal. • Inform the public on the issues in a manner that is not done by the media which essentially remains caught up in day-to-day reporting. • Better inform the general public on the issues of the day and contribute towards their decision making process, and influence the debate during constitution writing and upcoming elections. The major outcome of the project is expected to support democratic governance and peace process in Nepal through investigative journalism. But the immediate expected outcomes are: • Provide training to 75 young journalists from different part of Nepal in the field of investigative journalism; • Produce at least 50 well- researched articles and publish them in the media. • All or the best articles compiled and published as a book (in Nepali and English) for wider dissemination • Better understanding of IJ issues and greater coverage by media