U.S. AGENCY FOR GLOBAL MEDIA
Business and Economic Reporting
Situation
The U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), formerly the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), is an independent agency of the U.S. Government which reached 410 million people around the world in 2022 through its independent broadcast bureaus Voice of America (VOA), Office of Cuba Broadcasting, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Networks. During COVID-19, Vistra was contracted by USAGM to provide media trainers to develop a series of six journalistic workshops over a nine-month period to train reporters in Uzbekistan.
The program focused on business journalism, which prizes precision, fact-checking and objective data and statistics. The training provided comprehensive workshops on how to report on business, the economy and entrepreneurship in Uzbekistan, which are new concepts to the media in this critically important Central Asian nation. The training enhanced the quality of the media coverage and news broadcasts and provided journalists and their editors with new reporting techniques as well as a better understanding of their roles in an ever-evolving news environment. This program provided the most systematic effort in Uzbekistan’s media history to raise the skills, develop the professionalism and build trust between the press and the government.
Results
As a result, Uzbek journalism has moved into a new phase, on a stronger platform.
Some key highlights of this training program include:
- Number of trained journalists: 107
- Number of post-training media projects: 40
- Number of training alumni sponsored for participation in the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) Virtual Conference-2021: 3
- Number of journalists’ stories and investigative reports on business, economy, and finance produced and published/aired from December 2020 – October 2021: 130
- Number of trainees’ stories published on the VOA multiple platforms (website, Facebook, Telegram, Instagram, YouTube): 40
