By Amos Aar
AS part of their efforts to promote independent journalism in order to strengthen watchdog reporting on accountability, a non-governmental organisation, Safer-Media Initiative (SMI), has organised a 2-day capacity building workshop for journalists in Benue State.
The workshop which held in Makurdi, the state capital, from July 13-14, 2022 under the theme; “Strengthening Grassroots Governance and Accountability Reporting,” had in attendance 12 journalists in the state.
One participant each attended from the News Agency of Nigeria, Federal Information, Daily Independent, National Record, Daily Asset, Radio Benue Makurdi, Leadership, Blueprint Newspaper, the state-owned The Voice Newspaper, Oracle Newspaper, Pavilion Newspaper, News Echo Newspaper and Primary Newspaper.
Addressing participants at the opening ceremony of the workshop on Wednesday, Executive Director/Chief Executive Officer of SMI, Mr Peter Iorter, disclosed that the programme was a collaborative media project of the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ), assisted by the MacArthur Foundation to equip journalists with the skills needed to improve investigative reporting capacity.
Iorter stated that SMI will make “small” funds available for basic logistics to support selected journalists with the most acceptable story pitches to produce investigative stories on issues like water, schools, public defecation, hospitals, infant and maternity mortality, roads, women, children, girls, conflict, farming and many other areas of public interest.
The CEO clarified that investigative journalism is not a witch-hunt but integral to national development. According to him, “it holds authorities to account both in public and private sectors inclusivity of voices on issues” for common good of the society.
In his remarks, the Acting Chairman of the Benue State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Comrade Jerry Tyosase, expressed optimism that the workshop would boost the knowledge of the benefiting journalists and that it would go a long way to ensure that “not much social injuries are caused to individuals or communities where such investigations are done”.
Comrade Tyosase, who described the selection of the participants as “well done” charged them to take the training seriously to make positive impact on the society.
A resource person for the workshop, Taiwo Hassan Adebayo, an investigative journalism guru, made impactful presentations on “Sources Handling in Investigative Reporting,” “Impact Generation for Investigative Journalism,” and “Story Lab.”
Adebayo, who is the Head of Investigations and Data Desk at Premium Times Newspaper, urged journalists to always fact-check and balance their stories, provide evidence and investigate issues even in basic report they write so as to make their stories unique, practical and persuasive.
