National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) in collaboration with Image Merchants Promotion Limited and Penlight Centre had trained and certified practising journalists and online publishers in Kwara State for them to align with the current opportunities in technological advancement.
It is no longer news that the world is becoming a global village as technologies make activities accessible from one end to another, growing economy and as well making life better.
The programme, tagged ‘Digital Reporting, Fact-Checking and Social Media Management for Journalists’ greatly imparted skills into the participants.
The training acquainted journalists with several ways to verify information online with their smartphones and get accurate and authentic data without hindrances.
Journalists were made to realise that their minds have to be critically set to get to the root of any issue and report excellently.
Dahiru Lawal, project manager, Penlight Centre, noted that with the emerging trend of digital transformation, journalists should be able to tap the opportunities on the internet to ease their research and services rendering to the general public.
Lawal, who discussed the topic ‘Online Fact-Checking, Media Monitoring and Search Engine Optimisation,’ tutored news writers on various ways to fact-check information through the internet, pointing out that it is pertinent for journalists to be responsible enough by not rushing to be the first to break the news but rather; think outside the box, do the findings in a diligent manner, inject more facts and provide a balanced and authentic report.
He mentioned tools to detect and rate information to be fact or false to include; Technical know-how, Meta-data analysis, EV -Verifyer, Forensic analysis, Google earth and Power search.
All these, according to him, could be used to search for facts and manage misinformation about, video, text, audio, and pictures online.
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“As a journalist; you don’t just see or get a story and believe it; you have to go deep and move for further investigation. You might be in Lagos and something is happening in Maiduguri; through your search engine, you will discover whether it is true or not,” said Lawal.
Earlier, Yushau Shuaib, publisher of PR Nigeria, who examined ‘Digital Journalism, Social Media and Crises Communication,’ admonished journalists to desist from sensational reporting.
He added that as the 2023 election is getting closer where everybody would be posting anything online to defame or tarnish another person’s image, journalists have to be upright by doing the needful and getting rid of fake news.
The team leader advised participants to put into practice the knowledge acquired.
Other tutors were Saudat Sallah Abdulbaki of University of Ilorin, who discussed key issues in media management; Inyene lbanga from Tech Digest spoke on ‘Basic Digital Tools For Journalism’ and Kunle Adebayo, Editor Humangle Media, took reporters through the topic ‘Wide Possibilities of Social Media, Digital Inclusion and Global Reality.’
All participants of the training were awarded certificates.
