USAID’s BEACON-DG Activity organizes a local ownership workshop

In November 2019, USAID launched the Building Electoral and Accountability Capacity, Orderly Norms and Democratic Governance (BEACON-DG) activity to strengthen Guinea’s electoral processes through increased accountability of the electoral system. BEACON-DG is implemented by the National Democratic Institute (NDI), Search for Common Ground (SEARCH), and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES). 

SEARCH implemented the media component of the activity, training and coaching journalists, supporting listening clubs to counter rumors and fake news, and organizing in-situ mentoring to improve journalists’ skills to air accurate and impartial reporting and news.

SEARCH trained 500 journalists from public, private, print and online press. Training included sensitive reporting and interviewing skills, strategies for conflict sensitive reporting, professionalism, reporting during the electoral period, and the journalist code of conduct. As a result, the trained journalists were able to cover the electoral process and political crisis during the 2020 referendum and presidential election in a more professional manner.

SEARCH coordinated with the media to prevent misinformation, produced numerous programs broadcast on radio outlets and televisions, disseminated peace messages, and organized listening sessions through listeners’ clubs in remote areas where citizens generally do not have access to radio and television. The broadcast coordination strengthened citizens’ confidence in the media and in listeners' clubs.

 SEARCH’s component of BEACON-DG was completed on March 31, 2022.

Tiguidanké Diallo, a female journalist at Radio ESPACE says: “after participating in training sessions offered by SEARCH, my perception on reporting changed. I learned that a responsible journalist does not just re-publish press releases and articles but is truly concerned with a truthful, balanced and fair account of events. In order to achieve this, a journalist should describe the facts without exaggeration. This is what I apply now in my work.”

 For Ibrahima Sory “Lincoln” Soumah, a journalist at FIM FM Radio in Conakry,“one can never get all the facts about an event from just one newspaper. Unless we have all the facts, we cannot make a proper report about what is going on. With the broadcast coordination established during the 2020 electoral processes, Guinean public and private media worked hand in hand to disseminate consistent, accurate and impartial news.”