Working with the media

Researchers from the Institute of Rural Management Anand learn from policy brief and media workshop

By 03/09/2014

This blog is part of a showcase of exhibits from South Asian think tanks participating in the Think Tank Initiative’s Policy Engagement and Communications (PEC) programme. You may view other entries on the PEC Showcase Overview Page. 

On 1-2 July, 2014 Gagan Sethi and Aditi Kapoor (facilitators for the Think Tank Initiative’s PEC Programme) led a capacity development workshop aimed at researchers in the Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA) to enhance their policy brief writing skills, and strategies for communicating with the media.

The workshop included practical sessions on writing timely policy briefs where several research centres converted their academic research into first draft policy briefs, which could be worked on, and made available on the IRMA website. The workshop participants also benefited from the expert guidance of Rajiv Shah, the former political editor of the Times of India (Admedabad) and current editor of counterview.org. Rajiv shared his experiences of working in the media as well as strategies for engaging and influencing journalists. He stressed the importance having a media strategy, in today’s increasingly globalised and connected society, and exposed participants to a range of options for communicating via the media including: opinion pages, and letters to the editor.

IRMA has shared three PEC artefacts which came out of the workshop: two sample news stories; a concept note for a forthcoming conference; and finally the workshop report.

Showcase exhibit #1: View IRMA Workshop Outputs

Showcase exhibit #2: View IRMA Workshop Report

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This post has been produced as part of the Think Tank Initiative’s Policy Engagement and Communications (PEC) programme. However, these are the author’s personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect those of TTI. You can find all ongoing outputs related to this project via the PEC mini-site on Research to Action. To get updates from the PEC programme and be part of the discussion sign-up to our RSS or email updates. You can also follow our progress via Twitter using the following hashtag #ttipec.

Feature image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net.