The Lao Press in Foreign Languages yesterday began a two-day training course for local print media to prepare their information for presentation to the world.
The press office brought engineers from the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications to teach 10 IT officials from the Mass Media Department of the Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism and various newspapers and magazines from Champassak, Savannakhet, Khammuan , Xieng Khuang and Xayaboury provinces.
Director General of Lao Press in Foreign Languages, Mr Thongsavath Chansombath, said the training course aimed to develop the skills of personnel, not only in his office but also those who work in other print media outlets.
“Technology today is moving very rapidly and information is not restricted to newspapers, books and magazines. It’s now on Internet websites and is not simply in the form of texts to be read but has multimedia with speech, images and online video,” he said.
He added that it was very important for officials to fully understand the techniques used in building a webpage so that journalists can promote the country’s development and culture as well as highlighting the values of Lao people to the world.
During the course, the trainers used the Content Management System website to illustrate a number of points including website design, content management and how to upload information to the Internet.
Most of the trainees were very interested in website design and use of the system and asked lots of pertinent questions.
A participant working for the Savan Phatthana newspaper in Savannakhet province, Mr Phouthasinh, said it would be very good for his newspaper to promote Savannakhet province because there is as yet no official provincial website to provide this information to international readers.
“The newspaper is only distributed in Savannakhet province but this system will help people everywhere to access the information we put out. I believe it will not take too long to develop and use the website after this course,” he said.
The course runs from May 23 to 24, and on the first day the participants were taught how to design a website and update the information on it. On the second day, they will learn how to upload onto the real host of their domain name before the official launch of the website takes place.
Source: Vientiane Times
May 28, 2013
