ULAB-DRIK Launch “Ctrl+Alt+Story” Fellowship to Foster Long-Form Storytelling
Renowned photographer-activist Dr Shahidul Alam urged the students to pay more attention to long-form storytelling (journalism) while interacting with the students of University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB) at the Inaugural Session of “Ctrl+Alt+Story: Research and Storytelling in Journalism” a DRIK-ULAB joint initiative to inspire and help prospective storytellers grow through active mentorship.
The event was held on Thursday (December 18, 2025) to welcome the participants and orient them with the four-month-long activities. Prof. Sumon Rahman, Dean of ULAB’s School of Social Science and the Head of Media Studies and Journalism Department, delivered the welcome address. He said that in our increasingly fast-paced world we are becoming more prone to shorter/quick things and reading/writing longer, in-depth pieces becoming rare which in the long-run may affect all aspects of our life as these habits are connected to deep and critical thinking and taking time for that. This initiative is to inspire our young minds to revive those habits and skills. He thanked DRIK to partner with ULAB in such an important and timely initiative.
In his interactive session with the participants, Dr Alam discussed the basics of (slow) investigative journalism by presenting several examples from his four decade-long career as well as from the others. He mentioned that journalism is not a clerical job of telling people who said what at where (at which event) or what happened here and there, but it is a creative arena of explaining the ‘why’ by digging deeper objectively and scientifically and telling that to people in a way they will understand the best. We must not just rush with everything, rather we need to slow down sometimes, think deeply and critically to understand the true essence of the phenomena around us – he stressed. Dr Alam also warned the students that seeking out “why” is neither easy nor safe often; same applies to sharing the answer with people. However, there will always be ways if your intent is honest and strong – he added.
Dr Sarkar Barbaq Quarmal, Associate Professor, Media Studies and Journalism, ULAB and one of the project coordinators, moderated the session while the other coordinator, Oliur Rahman Sun, Lecturer, Department of English and Humanities, ULAB presented the details of the initiative to the participants. It is noteworthy here that the Ctrl+Alt+Story initiative started with 21 participants selected through a two-step rigorous process. In next six weeks, they will participate in several workshops and masterclasses with renowned journalists/storytellers. Afterwards, ten students will be provided with a fellowship worth fifty thousand taka each and a mentor to pursue an investigative journalism project of their preference.
