KARACHI: Centre for Excellence in Journalism (CEJ) Director Kamal Siddiqui has said that security is the most important need, especially when it comes to journalists in a country like Pakistan. He said this during the inaugural session of the capacity building workshop on policies, security mechanisms and best practices organised by the Individualland Pakistan at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) on August 27-28. The two-day event was organised to build the capacity of media houses and to train them to take effective security measures to protect media personnel and journalists from violence. The training included different sessions on the need of security policy, code of ethics at the national level, devising standard operating procedures (SOPs), implementation of standard operating procedures and securing premises and equipment. A participant, while quoting the recent attacks on offices of a leading private TV channel in Karachi said, “If only there was a sound security mechanism in place at the offices of these TV channels, the situation would have been very different.” A speaker was of the view that media institutions must evolve their security mechanisms, policies and codes of conduct, so that they are able to respond to emergency situations better. The participants were engaged in discussions, group work and role-playing activities during the two-day workshop. They were also asked to develop security mechanisms for their respective organisations during a group activity. All the participants lauded the efforts of the Individualland Pakistan in organising such a great event and demanded more events.