Nigerian journalists across diverse beats and broadcast sectors unlearnt inefficient journalism habits long practised and acquired a new set of skills desired to change the face of news reporting in a one-day training powered by Fidelity Bank Plc.
The training tagged “RethinkingContent” ran its first leg which took place last weekend at the Journalism Clinic in Lagos, facilitated by Taiwo Obe, Funke-Treasure Durodola and Pelu Awofeso, all veterans in the field of journalism and content creation.
Taiwo Obe who is the founder/director of the Journalism Clinic urged journalists to go beyond news reportage and become solution providers for their readers.
“What questions are your readers asking? How are you helping them find answers to these questions? As a journalist, you are to help your readers find solutions. By doing this, your content will sink with the people. You will become hard to forget and your relevance on your beat will begin to expand,” Obe taught.
In teaching the first 25 participants of the training how to convert the unique knowledge and talent they have to earnings, Obe said that having such knowledge will prevent journalists from getting disappointed with salaries that are not constant and not forthcoming or from relying on handouts that may lead the journalist to a compromise.
Introducing the use of software to enhance reportage, Funke-Treasure Durodola the assistant director, programmes, Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), showed participants how to write, create and tell everyday stories in more unique and memorable ways with the use of technological solutions that will connect faster with target audience, in her session titled “maximising audio in the digital age.”
Showing how journalists could contextualize stories to make it more significant, Durodola explained how socio-cultural, ideological, religious and economic angles of a story could be explored to ingrain an undying newspaper culture as found in countries like the United Kingdom who are fond of telling humanised stories.
While giving out tips and ideas that could change the content of Nigerian newsrooms, Durodola further urged journalist to always remain confident and remember that they stand as authorities in their respective fields.
After the works have been done and all the teachings have been put to practice, Pelu Awofeso a travel journalist emphasised the need for such work to be projected.
Stating that good content deserves accessible links and a great traffic, Awofeso encouraged journalists to make active use of social media channels to project their works.
He advised that at least four of the more popular applications should be actively engaged by every journalist. Expressing the need to be consistent, he also said journalist must keep an eye open for trends, hashtags, polls and many other tools on the various apps that can make the journalist stories easy to write and easier to find.
Expressing appreciation to Fidelity Bank, who sponsored the training, participants noted that they have been encouraged to further deepen the noble profession through balanced and sustainable reportage.
Other legs of the training are scheduled for 25 August in Enugu, 1 September in Lagos and 8 September in Abuja.
