Online

www.waterjournalism.org

Healthy initiative

In 2004, five mainstream journalists and a producer from All India Radio teamed up with the Bangalore-based non-profit organisation, Communication for Development and Learning (cdl). The website under review is the result of their endeavours. www.waterjournalism.org aims to build capacities of mainstream journalists so that the quality of media coverage on water-related issues improves. In the words of the site's authors, "Water journalism is an initiative to promote informed water coverage in the media for advocacy of a water policy that's just and equitable".

CDL collects information through media scan, research and websites. It then compiles relevant information from these sources for use. Some of these can be sampled at the site. www.waterjournalism.org also promises to link up journalists who work on water-related issues to experts in the field.

This is not all: CDL also selects a group of water journalists who then have extensive interactions with experts. According to www.waterjournalism.org, these interactions often lead to interesting story ideas. For example, the site notes with pride that a series of articles by one of its members, Girish Prabhu -- a journalist with the Kannada daily , Kannada Prabha -- led to extensive discussions in the Karnataka assembly on the drying up of the river Cauvery.

cdl's initiative is indeed laudable. But one just hopes that the organisation puts up more of the resources it has culled up at this site.

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