PAKTYA PROVINCE, Afghanistan – The Director of Information and Culture partnered with the Paktya Provincial Reconstruction Team to host a conference for 22 Afghan and coalition disc jockeys at the governor’s compound in Gardez Feb. 22.
The purpose of the conference was to give government-sponsored and radio in a box DJ’s the opportunity to discuss best practices and produce greater transparency of the government through radio messaging and other media capabilities.
“We discussed ways in which DJ’s and journalists can shorten the distance between the government and the people,” said one Afghanistan journalist.
The conference began with remarks from Deputy Gov. Abdul Rahman Mangal, who discussed the importance of radio messaging throughout the province.
“Media is very important, and they should always broadcast the real truth. If you broadcast wrong information it will create problems in the community,” said Mangal.
Following the deputy governor, Shah Moshfiq, the director of Information and Culture, emphasized the importance of keeping Paktya residents informed with timely and accurate information.
“We need to work together to broadcast all news to all of Paktya,” said Moshfiq. “The people need to know what the government is doing for them, and the government needs to know if the people are having problems.”
This was not the first DJ conference held in Paktya, and Mangal expressed his desire to continue hosting the event.
“Conferences like this improve the capacity of our journalists, and we should hold more in the future,” said Mangal.
In one part of the conference, participants were divided into three smaller groups to discuss ways to improve the quality of information flow across the province.
Each group wrote down discussion topics and presented a list of possible ways they can make the provincial government more transparent through messaging.
All three groups shared their ideas and agreed that information sharing must improve between the various media outlets.
“We would like to train more government journalists and DJ’s so we can get more information about development to the people,” said Abdul Rodwal, RTA station manager. “A lot of good things are happening in Paktya and people do not know about it. Radio plays a very important role in keeping the people informed.”
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