Participants at the workshop sponsored by Dangote Industries Ltd for journalists

Adejoke Adeleye, Abeokuta

Dangote Industries Limited has sponsored training for over 60 journalists in the Southwest region of Nigeria on the new skills of reporting.

The 3-day media workshop, organised in partnership with the Folio Communications with the theme, “The Convergence Journalism”, was aimed at further sharpening the expertise of journalists in the use of modern skills of reporting and approach to journalism with the use of new techniques.

While delivering his lecture, the speaker, Dr Jide Johnson, a former Deputy Provost of the Nigerian Institute of Journalism (NIJ), Lagos, said that society can’t do without Newspaper, Radio, Television, Phone, Data, Airtime, which are major gadgets of news reporting.

He said journalism of today thrives much in technology, making a journalist a global correspondent. He however, warned journalists  against being too emotionally- attached to their employers. He advised them to learn how to develop their own blogs and other social media platforms to keep their works, which they could later develop into book writing with their names as author.

Dr Johnson, who is a lecturer, scholar, consultant and public affairs analyst with over two decades experience in media management, appealed to journalists to be conscious of huge responsibility put on their shoulders as the “fourth estate of the realm” by the Nigerian Constitution which demands holding government accountable for all actions.

Also speaking on the theme “Media Marketing and Branding”, Dr Victor Ogwezzy stressed the need for journalists to see themselves as marketing officers for their respective media organisations, saying, “marketing in media remains everybody’s business without which no media organization will survive”.

Ogwezzy added that the survival and viability of a media organisation depend solely on its ability to be self-sustaining financially through generation of advertisements.

“For any media organization to survive and have value, it must have an identifiable audience, because many companies that want to advertise, look at audience contents before placing advertising in any media organization”, he said.

Emphasizing the importance of marketing orientation in the media industry, Dr Ogwezzy stressed that many of the media outfits making waves in the country in the past closed down operations following their inabilities to meet up with the financial wherewithal to sustain the market challenges, thereby sending their workers back into the labour market.

He, however explained that the best thing is for every media organisation to find its missing link which is audience and once that is discovered, then every worker in the organization can market their organisation  products for sustainable sales, and as well ensure that contents in their Newspapers, Radio, Television among others, are good enough to attract audience which would eventually bring advertisements and generate money for the organizations.

The 3-day media training featured Dr Jide Johnson, Dr Victor Ogwezzy and Mr Lekan Otufodunrin, a senior journalist  was sponsored by Dangote Industries Limited for 60 media practitioners drawn from Southwest states, especially Ogun State where Dangote Cement Plant located.