Training The Journalist

The International Press Centre, with the support of the British High Commission, organises a two-day workshop for journalists

By Nehru Odeh/Ibadan

When Mr. Lanre Arogundade and other media rights activists set up the International Press Centre, IPC, in 1999, they envisioned a society in which journalists would not only be free to practise but would do so with a sense of duty and responsibility.Ten years on, they have achieved that vision. Not only has IPC organised numerous capacity building programmes for journalists, it has been in the forefront in the campaign for a free and egalitarian society.

One of such capacity building programmes was a two-day training workshop on advanced skills for political and governance reporting which was held in Ibadan, Oyo State recently. IPC was supported by the British High Commission, BHC, Nigeria.

The guest speakers during the training included Mr. Soni Ehi Asuelimen, member, Editorial Board of The Compass; Mr. Femi Ojudu, Managing Editor, TheNEWS;  Ms Marquita Smith, Knight International Journalism Fellow; Mr. Ima Niboro, Senior Special Assistant(Media and Communications) to the Vice-President who was represented by Mr. Bolaji Adebiyi, Special Assistant to the President on Political Affairs.

In his presentation, Beyond the surface: using appropriate news gathering and interview skills in reporting government and politics in public interest, Mr. Soni Ehi Asuelimen, said though Section 22 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria gave specific assignment to the media in terms of holding government accountable to the people, it, the media, has not been able to fulfil its duties well. This according to him, is because of the challenges which the media face. Such challenges come in form of restrictions placed by government, lopsided coverage of news, lack of writing and reporting skills, ignorance of one’s beat and the environment as well as  journalists lackadaisical attitude to work.

As a way out of these challenges, Asuelimen posited that the government, media owners and journalists all have salient roles to play. According to him, government should assist the media financially to carry out its business.

Asuelimen also said journalists should brace up to the challenges of a global world by sharpening their skills through constant training,  retraining and voracious reading. He decried the situation in which journalists, while writing their stories, repeat the same mistakes that their editors had corrected. Asuelimen later enjoined journalists to arm themselves with necessities such as laptops and cameras.

On his part, Mr. Femi Ojudu, in his presentation, Overcoming deficiencies in reporting political and governance institutions: Role and responsibility of media managers, editors and reporters, bemoaned the falling standing of journalism practice in Nigeria. “Over the years my experience as a reporter and media manager has been that we have been through a lot of problems,” Ojudu said. According to him, these problems border on issues such as human resources and reporting.

Ojudu stated that he came into journalism with a lot of enthusiasm and passion, but nowadays a good number of people come into journalism not because of the passion they have for the job but for what they can gain from it.

He also lamented the situation whereby journalists share news reports and are no longer interested in follow-ups. “We have lost creativity in the media. We no longer ask questions because we no longer have the capacity to ask questions. We are no longer patient enough to go deep into issues. There is no longer follow-ups,” Ojudu observed, noting that this is a major threat to journalism.

Ojudu said one of the frustrations of the journalism profession is lack of good writing skills. “You give a good idea to a journalist, but he doesn’t know how to go about it,” he lamented. He also said even when journalists are  trained to the point where they can now write well, they eventually abandon the profession for more lucrative jobs.

Ojudu, however, expressed his delight at the various interventions IPC has made so far in the media industry.

In his presentation, Reporting Government And Governance For Development And Public Interest: Overcoming the Missing Links, Ima Niboro asserted that despite the very important roles which the media plays in the society, in terms of monitoring compliance with the fundamental  objectives of the constitution, it has not been able to assert its presence in the polity. Accordng to him, this is because journalists under-report development issues and areas of public interest.

In her presentation, Perspectives: A tool for covering The Whole Community, Marquita Smith, posited that in news coverage perspectives through which journalists write their reports are very important. She identifies such perspectives, or lenses, as ethnicity class, gender, generation and geography. According to Smith, journalists could easily ignore those perspectives and concentrate on one, or a few, when writing their reports. “When we try to see things from different points of view, it helps us to see ourselves and communities as a whole,” she said.

At the end of the presentations, the participants issued a communique which not only recommends solutions to the problems bedevilling journalism practice in Nigeria but also set an agenda for development reporting.

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