Although all forms of journalism (Print, Broadcast, and Digital-News, Reviews, Column, and Feature Journalism) have the same pillars of: Truth, Accuracy, and Objectivity; Investigative journalism takes the lead when it comes to digging up facts.
It involves unmasking information that is deliberately or un-deliberately hidden and hence requires not only patience but also skills for a reporter to reveal all the facts:giving birth to organizations like M28 that are devoted to empowering journalists with the adequate skills to “address and report on investigative stories with facts”- Samuel Baker Byansi, co-founder and Managing director M28 Investigates.
In partnership with the Netherlands Embassy in Rwanda, M28 Investigates (an independent, non profit newsroom set up by Rwandan investigative journalists to produce investigative journalism with moral force) organized a training session to train upcoming journalists, journalists, and individuals on how to practice investigative journalism.
The training that was conducted in two phases; the first running from 25th July-29th July and the second from 29th August-2nd September 2022 had people from different bodies like RGB and RIB, journalists, and college students especially those from Mount Kenya University Rwanda take part. The main emphasis of the training was to increase student’s resources for investigative journalism and showing them step by step procedures of being a good investigative journalist.
Speaking to students during the training, Solomon Serwajja an investigative journalist and Executive Director of AFRICA INSTITUTE FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM encouraged students to always get out of their comfort zones if they want to be good investigative journalists because if they don’t, they won’t go far.
He also added that Journalist’s role is to safeguard public interest and they do that by protecting their sources and always reporting facts. Serwajja further more urged the students to educate the public about investigative journalism as a way of fighting misunderstandings surrounding the context.
RIB spokesperson Dr. Thierry B. Murangira said it’s always nice to sometimes sit back and listen to experts from both your field and related fields narrate their stories because it helps in career development. He added that investigative journalism is linked to criminal investigation and thus encouraged students to take it seriously. Mr. Jean Bosco Rushingabwi who is the media coordinator at RGB a well known contributor to investigative journalism in Rwanda on the other hand urged the students and free lancer journalists to view every story in an investigative way so as to promote good governance and a democratic society.
The five day training session that took place at Centric Hotel in Kigali was concluded with awarding participants certificates. Among these was Jean Felix Muyisenge from MKUR who cant thank the organizers enough for the opportunity they gave them. Speaking to the MKUR magazine editor, excited Felix said he didn’t know that Investigative journalism was hard yet an interesting career, “I learnt that to be a good investigative Journalist requires one to be patient, resilient, and work with others. Investigative Journalists have an Internationally recognized body that brings them together and through this, I may be a journalist from Rwanda but be able to work with BBC and CNN in case am handling a story that may cause me havoc“.
