An Uphill Battle Won with MoJo

A mobile storyteller relates how MoJo has transformed his career as a journalist.

Tucked on top of towering mountains perpetually covered by a thick blanket of mist, every mundane task is an uphill battle in Nuwara Eliya. The main district in the central highlands of Sri Lanka, Nuwara Eliya is home to people of diverse cultures, majority of whom are engaged in tea, vegetable, fruit and fresh flower cultivation that grow comfortably and effortlessly in the cool climate. But for the people in Nuwara Eliya, life does not come effortless.

For Chandana Thilak de Silva, a young journalist who was born and bred in Nuwara Eliya, the life was as difficult as for the rest of his community, a struggle against the climate and geography. Ever since he started his career as a journalist, Chandana has been traveling to every nook and corner of his city hunting for news. But it was not as convenient for him as it was for his colleagues the urban cities. On his motor-bike, the easiest and fastest way to outdo the slippery roads winding around mountains like a serpent, he would travel for long hours with a battalion of equipment he used for news coverage.

He recalls his past “Those days I had quite a tough time going for news coverage. I carried a lot of equipment including a heavy DSLR camera and a laptop among many other. Even for a breaking news which had to be sent back to the news room immediately, I had to first shoot it using my camera, transfer the clips to my laptop, edit and then sent it to the news room which was very time consuming”. Unfortunately, his struggle was not only with grappling with multiple equipment in various stages of the news production. “Apart from the hassle of shooting and editing a news item, when you add the lack of a stable mobile reception and an internet connection so high up in the mountains this process took me more than an hour. Needless to say, it was not the best way to report a breaking news and there were many moments when I could not send the news on time”.

But things changed for better when he joined the MediaCorps Fellowship Program in February 2020. The MediaCorps Fellowship Program is a capacity building program for young journalists hailing from diverse ethno-linguistic backgrounds who are trained in mobile storytelling (MoJo) as a tool to tell the stories of peace building and of marginalized communities. “Fed up with carrying and handling many equipment for news coverage, Chanadana tried if he could do the same with his mobile phone with no luck. He didn’t know of the existence of MoJo and thus had no idea how to shoot, edit and disseminate stories from the mobile phone. “It was through a friend of mine, who was an alumnus that I learnt about the MediaCorps Fellow. He was also a young journalist like me and he introduced me to the concept of MoJo that he learnt through the MediaCorps Fellowship”. Chandana applied for the Fellowship with the sole intention of learning how to shoot and edit a news item from the phone with hopes of relieving himself from the burden of carrying the arsenal of equipment all over the hilly areas of Nuwara Eliya in the future, but he realized later that MediaCorps offers much more!

“All I wanted to know was how to shoot and edit using my smartphone. But the Fellowship went beyond the traditional bounds of a journalist training. We were made part of a big family of young journalists coming from diverse ethnicities. I met and befriended many young journalists like myself coming from different parts of the country. It was a great learning experience for me to know the challenges and experiences of other journalists”, says Chandana.

Just like Chandana expected, the workshop gave him the intensive MoJo training the Fellowship promised of. From hunting stories, shooting a story to editing and disseminating it was a complete package. “I was very satisfied of the training I received. It covered all areas a MoJo journalist should know from shooting, video and sound editing, to script writing and adding narrations. MoJo was taught to us not only as a tool of storytelling but as a progressive development in our career as journalists”, says Chandana gratefully.

As a part of the MediaCorps Fellowship Chandana was paired with a Fellow Muslim journalist from Ampara Abdul Risath with whom he did a story on the adverse impact of the newly constructed Oluvil harbour on the fisheries industry.

Ever since Chandana returned from the MediaCorps training, he never took his camera and the laptop back to the field again! “After returning home from the training I bid adieu to all the equipment I used in news coverage, which had by then become redundant. Now only carry my phone, a tripod and a clip-on mike which takes up so little space. Thankfully, there are no more uphill journeys with a heavy back pack”, laughs of Chandana.

He proudly calls him now a Mobile Journalist, completely relying on his smartphone in all stages of reporting, from shooting, editing and to disseminating news. “For the past five months all news reports I have done are MoJo reports. The hour-long labour to send a news item to the news room has now been brought down to a matter of few minutes. Never again I will be late to submit a breaking news”. Chandana also adds that he has now downloaded several other mobile apps and purchased few more MoJo equipment to support him to produce better quality MoJos.

Another reason Chandana is grateful for the MediaCorps Fellowship is because it taught him the art of storytelling beyond news reporting. “Through MediaCorps I learnt how to produce an in-depth story instead of merely reporting a news. Now I’m more into creating stories rather than brief news items and I have a good demand for my stories from almost all mainstream television channels in the country”.

During the past few months, the entire country was on a standstill due to the Covid-19 pandemic which made many provincial journalists out of work and every other citizen confined to their homes unable to engage in their usual carefree lives. But Chandana was as busy as ever! He had by then discovered how to make the best use of this hard time. While many conventional journalists couldn’t move as around freely with bulky recording equipment, all that Chandana had to do was to go to the field with his smartphone and capture stories of how communities were responding to the pandemic. He also joined the MediaCorps Watch, a news magazine program launched by SDJF together with the Centre for Media and Information Literacy (CMIL) as an extension to the MediaCorps Fellowship. The MediaCorps Watch news magazine was focusing on reporting ground level human interest stories related to the pandemic and Chandana sent several interesting stories from Nuwara Eliya. The declined fresh flower industry and vegetable cultivation in Nuwara Eliya due to the pandemic which were once very lucrative industries were two of the noteworthy stories he sent for the MediaCorps Watch. When the program launched in second phase recently to cover the stories in the aftermath of the pandemic, Chandana sent few more stories, notably a story on the increased demand for Ceylon Tea at a time every other export industry was witnessing a drop in prices and demand. “MediaCorps Watch offered us a platform to practice the art of MoJo in addition to the scope of the Fellowship. By producing stories on a regular basis during the extended lock down period I could further master my skills in MoJo”.

Figure 1. Chandana covering the story of increased demand for pears cultivation during the pandemic period.

For Chandana learning MoJo is also an opportunity to keep up with the global trends in journalism. “For me MediaCorps was a life-changing experience. My professional life as a journalist took a better turn to what it is today, thanks to MediaCorps. As far as I know MoJo is still a new and trending tool globally and I’m proud that I’m keeping abreast with that global trend”. Chandana ends his inspirational story with a request, “My request to all young journalists out there is to be a part of this Fellowship. I can guarantee you all that it is not just another training for journalists but a doorway for a whole lot of opportunities. Last but not the least it will make you a part of a vibrant community of young journalists and storytellers who you will never meet if not for the MediaCorps”.

Watch More:

Chandana’s MoJo Story for the MediaCorps Fellowship: LINK

Chandana’s stories for MediaCorps Watch:

Story 1 (Rising Pears cultivation in Ragala, Nuwara Eliya)

Story 2 (Increased demand for Ceylon Tea during the pandemic)

By- Hasarel Gallage