Nigerian journalists charged on investigative reporting

Media experts have challenged Nigerian journalists to focus more on investigative reporting in order to make meaningful impact on the nation’s development.

Speakers at the opening of a three-day media training programme holding in Abuja on Tuesday said for the media to effectively play its role as the watchdog of the society, it has to go beyond the usual daily reporting.

The event, which began on Tuesday, will run through Thursday as part of a two-year capacity building programme for 40 journalists across genres of newsrooms from different parts of the country.

According to Dayo Aiyetan, Executive Director of the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR), the essence of the training is to raise a new generation of elite journalists to strengthen the nation’s democracy and chart a new course for journalism business in Nigeria.

The three-day training programme is being organized by the ICIR with support from the America-based Ford Foundation.

Aiyetan said he had observed that most Nigerian journalists lack the capacity to do through investigative reporting, expressing the hope that by the time the training programme is concluded, the participant would have acquired enough knowledge and skills to do their job and chart a new course for journalism in the country.

In his keynote address, former Managing Director of the New Nigerian Newspaper, Mohammed Haruna, said the media has very important role to play in promoting accountability across the sectors and strata of the society.

He charged media practitioners to take advantage of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act to make the government and its officials at all levels alive to their responsibilities to the society.

With media scholars from Nigerian and the United States, the participants will be tutored on how to conceive of investigative story ideas, pursue them and present them in compelling form to be irresistible to their audience.

 Scheduled to last for two years, the programme is also designed to make funds available for participants to pursue investigative stories that will be relevance to their peculiar environments.