No fewer than 100 journalists in Lagos and Rivers states have been trained on “Digital Reporting”, to widen their horizon and efficiency, by Skye Bank Plc as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme.
The participants, drawn from the print and electronic media, were exposed to how I-phones, android and smart-phones, coupled with many applications, could be used to source and break news to a wide spectrum of audience.
Specifically, the participants cut across finance and capital market, labour, crime and judicial correspondents.
The resource person and a Commonwealth Fellow, Taiwo Obe, in his lecture titled “Disruption of Things,” said technology had blurred and almost erased the line of divide between the print and electronic media.
Obe, who is also a member of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, said journalists are now story tellers “who tell the stories in a digital age”.
According to him, media practitioners’ smart-phones, Android and I-phones are not only “powerhouse,” but also the seamless tools needed to convey stories to the target audience, and as fast as possible.
The Managing Consultant at Michael Sage Consulting, Yinka Olaito, advised journalists to build individual community of online followers and share quality information with them as a basis for recognition.
Citing information from the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC), he noted that about 83 million Nigerians are hooked up to the Internet through the GSM in search of information.
The implication of the digital age, he added, “is that the bulk of the information seekers do not go to the traditional newsstands or vendors anymore, but have migrated to the global digital village with the help of smart-phones among others”.
He lamented that while story telling had since changed, a good number of Nigerian journalists have neither changed nor adapted to the trend and blamed the situation on ignorance.
Earlier, the Head of Strategic Brand Management, Skye Bank, Nduneche Ezurike, said journalists need skills to survive in a changing media world where news breaks in succession.
According to him, journalists must be able to use their tools like androids, computers, among others, to generate time lines and other reports in a fresh and timely manner.
Guardian
