A two-day Capacity Building Workshop for journalists in Benue state has ended in Makurdi, the state capital with a charge on participants to use the knowledge gained to serve the society better.
The event with the theme: “Strengthening Grassroots Governance and Accountability Reporting” was put together by Safer-media Initiative (SMI) in collaboration with the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism and supported by the MacArthur Foundation.
Declaring the workshop open, Executive Director and Chief. Executive Officer, Safer-Media Initiative, Peter Iorter said that the essence of the workshop was to provide a strong advocacy for the independent media, Empowering Journalists to conduct their craft with up-to-date skills and relative safety while championing ethical, data-driving and in-depth Journalism that drives the vision of social justice, good governance and accountability in the defence of public interest.
According to the organizer, investigative journalism is integral to national development, as it plays the watchdog role of Journalists holding authorities to account, both in the public and private sector and ensures inclusivity of voices on issues.
Iorter maintained that the absence of investigative journalism affects accountability, while poverty ravages the people, cutting deadly paths across communities especially in local settings.
He added that Safer-Media Initiative, which aims at strengthening watchdog Journalism, media reporting on accountability and inclusion of the most underrepresented voices, places and issues finds the need to strengthen the Capacity of Journalists for in-depth reporting on what is working and what is not-exposed lies, abuses of power and corruption in managing public resources, lack of transparency and accountability by providing Journalists with the required skill to improve their investigative reporting capacity.
In his remarks, Chairman, Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Benue State Council, Comrade Jerry Tyosase noted that the training will help Journalists to upgrade on their knowledge acquired in the school and charged participants to take the training seriously and use the knowledge gained to impact positively on the society.
Resource person at the workshop, Taiwo Hassan Adebayo who is also Investigative Editor, Premium Times Newspaper trained participants on investigative reporting and Story building techniques, development and data Journalism for covering community, Sources handling in investigative reporting, impact generation for investigative journalism, story lab and redesigning story pitch amongst others.
Some of the Participants at the workshop including; Daily Asset Correspondent, David Torough, Terhemen Ater of Radio Benue and Aar Terna of National Record all expressed appreciation to the organizers, saying that the training offered them the opportunity to gain more experience that would add value to their various organizations and the society at large.
A total of 51 Journalists were trained as the organizers have earlier trained 39 Journalists in Abuja and neighbouring states while 12 were trained in Benue.
Source: Daily Asset