At least, 20 participants including editors drawn from different media houses in the country and student journalists from Insight Training Centre, yesterday received a day training on responsible editing at the Media Agenda building in Churchills Town.

In his opening remarks, Musa Sheriff, programme officer at Media Agenda said editors are referred to as gatekeepers in their media houses. He advised editors to be mindful of what they are doing and always consult with their reporters in the newsrooms. "Editors should not also feel that they know all. They should be ready to learn new things about journalism to improve on their status,"  he advised.

The media agenda programme officer also described the training as part of the 170 journalists training package from a sponsorship derived from NATCOM. He said the training started in early December 2008 with middle managers from all the media institutions in the country, both print and electronic media.

Bakary Abba Sanneh, programme manager at Media Agenda, used the opportunity to call on the editors to improve on their status. The training was characterised by presentations from Nana Grey Johnson, a veteran Gambian journalist and writer, who presented a paper on the Media Code of Ethics and Aisha Davies-Ann, director of the Gambia Information Services, who presentated on the topic: ‘Editor as the gate keeper in the newsroom’.
Participants were awarded certificated at the end of the training and Emily Touray, secretary general of the Gambia Press Union delivered the closing remarks.