By Joseph Amedu, Lokoja
The need for continuous training and retraining of professionals in all fields of human endeavours cannot be over emphasized. In profession like journalism, medicine, engineering, law and others alike requires constant workshops and in-house tutorial to update and shape practitioners on modern trends in their professional callings.
In Kogi state, Stallion Times Media Services in collaboration with MacArthur Foundation has made its impact in this direction through its series of workshops for journalists to ensure quality reportage of their immediate society in line with modern technology.
In the months of April, July and August this year, Stallion Times Media Services has been able to train no fewer than one hundred journalists in Kogi state. The workshops were funded by MacArthur Foundation, a partner in the project.
In April, the benefiting journalists drawn from Print, Electronic and Social Media Outfits were trained on ‘Code of Ethics’. Also in July journalists were engaged with a one day workshop in ‘Disability Reporting’ while in August journalists benefited from another two week training on ‘Budget Tracking and Reporting’.
The objective of all these segments of training with the Theme: “Get Involved, Dialogue and Improve Project” is to encourage journalists to be more professional, to identify pitfalls and gaps militating against professionalism as well as recommend steps towards upholding professional ethics and code of conduct by journalists.
In the same vein, what the workshops intends to achieve is to ensure that those with disability challenge in the society were adequately reported upon and carried along in the Media business.
Also, the series of trainings is aimed at building the capacity of journalists on budget processes and procedures and how to track and report constituency projects as well as develop and write investigative story ideas.
The Chief Executive Officer, CEO, Stallion Times Media Services, Kano, Mallam Isiyaku Ahmed, has advocated a robust engagement between Journalists and stakeholders in the preparation and implementation of Kogi State budget.
According to him,such effort will enable Journalists track and report budget effectively to the have informed opinion about budget.
Ahmed stated this at the end of the latest segment of a Two-Day Training Workshop, organised for Journalists in the state by Stallion Times Media Services.
Ahmed,who is also the GDRIP Coordinator,said that the call became necessary in view of the over low tracking and reporting of budget by Journalists in the state, adding that the trend must change for the better.
He said that for journalists to accomplish the desired success in such task, they must zero their mind from the belief that those charged with the responsibility of developing budget are not reachable or approachable for information.
He reminded the Journalists that in the event of not been able to reach the critical stakeholders directly, they could use those very close to them, in addition to using relevant internet information pertaining to the subject matter.
The CEO said that Journalists were also at liberty to use diplomacy, dialogue and partnership in obtaining relevant information to enable them write well informed stories about budget.
Ahmed, who noted that tracking and reporting budget could be daunting, advised Journalists to conduct such investigative report with great caution,in view of its security challenges.
“For instance, you could ask somebody else to assist you in snapping the picture of Constituency projects cited in the budget you are tracking and reporting.
” Don’t tell anybody that you are going to publish the story,fact-check your story and give it to somebody knowledgeable enough to read and help make it error free before publication.
“You could share your story with colleagues who are willing to publish and if you decide to publish your story, you can use psudo name as your byline, if you like,” he urged.
The Stallion Times boss, who described investigative reporting, especially on budget, as a complex exercise said that his word of caution became imperative for Journalists who delve into the task to be mindful of their security.
Earlier in his lecture, entitled “Budget Monitoring: Understanding the Concept and Tracking of Constituency Project”, Mr Henry Omokhaye of Budgit Foundation, called on participants to be thorough in reporting budget Issues.
A good reportage of Constituency Projects cited in a budget,he noted, entailed that the Journalists know everything about the project; the location,the estimate, setting time for monitoring,interact with its initiator, sampling the feeling of the community toward the project among other steps.
Contributing, a media consultant,Mr Steve Salau, who spoke on “Developing Investigative Story Ideas”, called on Journalists to investigate budget stories with the best of ethics before going to the press.
According to him, budget story could be in form of the conventional report, investigstive and interpretative to be able to adequately inform the public and for the people to have informed opinion about intention towards their wellbeing.
In their responses,the participants thanked Stallion Times for availing them the opportunity of the workshop, adding that it had increased their knowledge and promised to put their experience to enhanced budget tracking and reporting in their work.
They also appreciated the two resource persons for impacting invaluable knowledge in them, a development they noted would boost their productivity beyond budget tracking and reporting.
It would be recalled that Stallion Times has so far organised three training workshops for Journalists in the state since the beginning of 2022.