UNESCO partners with St. Xavier’s College to train students on the use of AI tools in journalism

KATHMANDU: The Faculty of Journalism, DoMA, St. Xavier College, in collaboration with the UNESCO Office in Kathmandu, wrapped up a two-day news-writing workshop, covering various aspects of journalism, including the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools.

For the first time, the college invited twelve journalism students from four public and community colleges in the Kathmandu Valley–Ratna Rajya Laxmi Campus.

Madan Bhandari Memorial College, Namuna Machhindra College and Nepal Commerce Campus–to train with fifteen St. Xavier students on writing article pitches and stories for the national and international media
outlets and other related topics.

The college invited national and international experts, including AI expert, Naresh Newar, to train the students. Newar says, “I suggest they use AI as an assistant. Use it to generate their own content, whether it’s social media posts or images, use for idea generation, that’s the best thing about AI.” He emphasized that the more you practice, the more you understand AI, the more you understand, the more you know the limits of AI and understand its ethical use.

Bhadra Sharma, a journalist from The New York Times, shared his reporting experiences and story pitches for media outlets. Louisa Kamal, British writer and educator, identified the common mistakes in writing and how to rectify them to make writing flawless.

Students were also given practical based assignments for writing pitches and stories.

Nishant Adhikari, one of the participants from Madan Bhandari College, felt happy to attend the workshop. “This workshop helped to enhance my understanding and skills in AI tools better. Although I was practicing it earlier, trainers opened up my mind further,” said Adhikari.