Women Journalists Charged To Develop And Explore Opportunities In Multimedia Skills

by Olusayo Babatunde

Nigerian journalists have been encouraged to develop more skills to be digitally compatible to form content in multimedia platforms.

The Director General of the Institute for Media and Society, IMS, Dr Akingbolu gave the advice in Port Harcout, River State in his opening remarks at a 2-day training in DIGITAL/MULTIMEDIA SKILLS FOR WOMEN JOURNALISTS drawn from different broadcast stations in 9 states of the federation.

Speaking through the Project Manager, Mr Timothy Bamidele, the DG advised participants to pay attention to every segment of the training for them to meet the demands I the global community.

On his part, Mr Bamidele stressed the need for participants to be ready to learn and unlearn as well as gather enough skills to enhance productivity in their chosen career.

The project manager said the training is an activity under the Support Media Component of the European Union Support to Democratic Governance in Nigeria EU-SDGN.

He said “the IMS has trained over sixty female journalists in Nigeria and we’ve been discussing with EU to approve supplementary activities to train more journalists through validated results of past events.

Me Timothy Bamidele therefore implored the participants who were drawn from Osun, Oyo, Ondo, Ekiti, Edo, Rivers, Bayelsa, Delta, Anambra and Anwa Ibom states to leverage on the use of digital technology and skills to creat contents on emerging post-election issues to meet the demands of the season in an inclusive manner.

A NAWOJ member from Osun State, Mrs. Olusayo Babatunde who was among the participants in the training reports that a digital multimedia expert, Mr. Uniform OMOZOKPEA while taking the participants through his presentation on podcasting said “penpushers involved in the reportage of post-election issues like tribunal sittings should develop skills to break down judgments and analyse them, as well as interpret technical jagons of professionals and endeavour to give correct interpretation of terminologies.

“Nowadays podcast is a veritable tool for journalists, using the internet space to make digital recordings and voice overs. Therefore, journalists have the responsibility of setting the pace for the leaders by making them know the consequences of their actions and/or inactions, said Mr. OMOZOKPEA

Ho however noted that a poscaster must be a naturally lively person so as to make the audience enjoy the posts and be consistent on her chosen content.

In her paper, EHI OHIANI, a digital content Expert explained that every equipment has been reduced to an app on the internet and urged journalists to make room for the apps on their phones.

EHi is of the view that since politicians only play the game for a while, having conversation with an ordinary man on the street helps in building content as a multimedia story teller.
According to her, a podcaster must also develop skills in pictures and photography that tell stories will to enhance and promote the posts.

Emphasizing on ELEMENTS OF CONTENT, the resource person advised that knowing the target audience will determine the information to be disseminated.

Participants later broke into 5groups to have a work plan on practical issue that arose after Nigeria’s general election. These ranged from vote buying /selling, violation of no movement order, to under voting, malfunctioning of BVAS, Irev, among others.