The pilot ANFREL Southeast Asia Media Fellowship on Election Reporting recently concluded helping train six journalists from different countries in the region as well as develop and produce compelling stories that reflect and amplify the issues and challenges that electoral stakeholders face.

Launched in August 2021 thanks to the generous support of the Mission of Canada to ASEAN, the ANFREL media fellowship program took as fellows six journalists from Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam who underwent intensive training sessions that provided a better understanding of key electoral concepts, engagement and participation of electoral stakeholders, and fundamental election reporting context and skills.

The 10 training sessions covered the following themes and topics:

Through the training sessions, the ANFREL media fellows were able to engage with various election and democracy actors as well as journalists and hear about the work they do, their experiences, insights and discuss the role of the media in ensuring free, fair and democratic elections.

The following organizations enriched the knowledge of the media fellows through the training and discussions:

The ANFREL media fellows developed and produced the following stories through the mentorship, editorial, and financial support from the program. The views and opinions in the stories produced under the program do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the Mission of Canada to ASEAN or the Government of Canada.

ANFREL hopes these stories shed light on the contemporary issues and challenges that electoral stakeholders in Southeast Asia face and that they inspire a culture of nuanced reporting of elections that would help the electorate make informed choices and monitor the electoral processes against irregularities and misdeeds.