BEVERLY HILLS, CA, December 23, (THEWILL) – Members of the Warri Correspondents Chapel of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), Delta State recently embarked on a two-days training on new media and its challenges.
The aim was to tackle headlong the challenges of the social media to professional journalists in recent times.
The training workshop, designed to train journalists on multi-media and the challenges of journalism practice, held at Godatin Hotel, Warri, and was sponsored by PPMC, WRPC, CORDINATE GROUPS, as well as DBIR, an agency of the Delta State Government.
Participants at the workshop included members of the Warri Correspondents Chapel of the NUJ, the POINTER Chapel of the NUJ, the state owned broadcasting station (DRTV), members of the civil society organisation as well as personnel from the State Police Command.
The Delta State Commissioner for Information, Mr. Chike Ogeah, who declared the seminar open, commended the union for organising the workshop which, according to him, was in tandem with the state government educational programmes.
He recalled that the government recently sponsored a training for journalists in the state at the Thomson Reuters Foundation Institute in London.
Represented by the Acting Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Information in the State, Mr. Paul Osahon, the commissioner noted that the challenges posed by the implosion of the social media cannot be over-emphasised, saying aside its good, social media has negative and grave impact on the practice of journalism in the country.
Specifically, he said that the social media which comprises of the Facebook, Twitter, and others have impacted negatively on Delta State, lamenting that unwarranted blackmail and falsehood have become the stock of trade of many jobless and idle relevant seeking lot.
In his remarks, the State NUJ Chairman, Comrade Norbert Chiazor, expressed delight over the training exercise, saying the skills garnered by journalists after the programme would help advance journalism in the state.
While commending the union for the laudable initiative, Chiazor urged other chapels of the state NUJ to emulate the initiative.
Presenting a lecture at the event, a lecturer in journalism and media language at the Babcook University, Ilishan-Remo, Ogun State, Mr. Chigozi Eti, said the media has gone ‘social’ because it audience went ‘social’, adding that journalists must ensure that their communication meets the audience of the future.
In his lecture titled “Brand story telling”, the guest lecturer said the Niger Delta region can be evenly developed through brand story telling, lamenting however that often time; “our story is that we have made corruption a phenomenon in Nigeria” instead of telling the story that would change the face of the country.
Eti said that as media practitioners, the challenges before journalist is how they can rebrand the Niger Delta from stories of oil theft, kidnapping, armed robbery and other social vices to stories that tell the potentials and beauty of the region.
In a related lecture entitled; “Writing for the New Media: Challenges and Prospect in the Globalized Era”, Associate Dean, Student Affairs, Delta State University, Abraka, Dr. Emmanuel Ufuophu-Biri, said the exploit of the new media has brought the world together whereas information are spread round the world in a jiffy.
Ufuophu-Biri traced the history of new media to the time Johannes Gutenberg introduced Metal Movable Type (MMT) in Mainz, Germany in 1454 and said the technology facilitated modern newspaper publishing at that time.
He said what constituted the new media yesterday becomes an obsolete one today, adding that the new media of today will soon become old media tomorrow.
“Each era is thus inundated with new media. Thus there is hardly an era that does not have its own peculiar new media,” he said.
