Stanchart trains journalists

| Tuesday March 23, 2010 00:00

The call came from the Deputy Managing Director of Standard Chartered Bank Botswana, Serty Leburu at a two-day training workshop orgainsed by the bank in cooperation with a local Media and Public Relations company, Seed Communications.

Leburu said the media is privileged to meet a large number of people in the society including decision makers.“Remember that you are a very powerful section of our society and you can influence decision-making, therefore your understanding of issues that you report about is very critical,” she said.Leburu said Standard Chartered Bank recognises the role that the media plays in the economy of the country therefore they took it upon themselves to help develop them. She said the sponsorship of the workshop of this nature is an indication of their commitment to the development of the media.

The workshop brought together experts in the financial and economic matters who trained the media to report on the two fields. The objectives of the workshop were to help the media understand and report better on business issues. The workshop covered a number of topics among them, Understanding the stock market, analyzing financial statements, Understanding the government budget, monetary policy, inflation and factors that affect the inflation rate.One of the trainers at the workshop, Nelson Letshwene who presented on financial literacy said it is important to help journalists understand how different issues affect them at a personal level. He said in that way, they are able to relate that to other individuals and companies.According to Letshwene,when there’s an increase in interest rates, most people can’t respond intelligently because they don’t actually know how it is going to affect them, until it does.

Letshwene said from the Journalist’s point of view, they can write better if they understand these effects at a personal level.  That way they can interrogate corporate executives better instead of just writing what they are told or just rewriting and commenting on press releases from corporations. “If business news can get more individualised, more people might be interested in the business sections than are currently,” he said.

Standard Chartered Bank’s Head of Global Markets, Olebile Makhupe took the media through financial statements.  “Through our interaction with the media, it turned out that companies present their financial results tabulated and the media has a problem talking to these figures and we took advantage of this workshop to help the media identify the critical elements of these reports that they should focus on as well as help them talk to these figures and be able to interpret them,” she said.

Thapelo Tsheole, of the Botswana Stock Exchange  took the media through the activities that take place in the stock market. He discussed the role of stock exchange in the economy, who can list in the stock exchange, regulations of the stock exchange, role of stockbrokers, Process of listing and delisting and factors affecting the share prices, among other subjects.The Executive Chairman of Seed Communication, Batlhalefi Leagajang said he is aware of the challenges that the media faces and since his business and clients rely a lot on the medi,  he took it upon himself to approach companies and ask for sponsorship to hold the workshop.

According to Leagajang, companies use the media as a vehicle through which they reach out to their publics and it is therefore important to ensure that they help equip the media with all the necessary skills to help them execute their mandate. “I must thank Standard Chartered Bank Botswana for their support. Immediately I presented the idea to them they came on board and they have actually asked me to come up with a way of making media training of this nature an ongoing process.”