By; JACOB ONJEWU DICKSON
A heated plenary that witnessed several contributions, drew the curtains on the two-day discussion on education scorecard in Kaduna State, put together by the Partnership to Engage Reform and Learn (PERL), in collaboration with Kaduna State Basic Education Accountability Mechanism (KADBEAM).
At the plenary, held on Tuesday November 16, 2021, two topics were on the front burner; leveraging on available spaces and tools for engagement and integrating social media in engagement issues.
The plenary anchored by Ehis Agbon, targeted at making the news, programmes and articles incisive and informative.
Agbon advised media practitioners to always keep their information short and simple.
He said bulky reports are burdensome and may be ignored by many.
He stressed that reports need to be impactful, if not, it would be a waste of time.
In his contributions to the discourse, Gombe of Nagarta Radio said that messages should be made interesting and communicated in languages the target audience readily understand.
“I believe if that is done, it would make an impact on the audience,” he said.
Also contributing, Angela Okafor of Supreme FM said that it is important not to be too serious when passing such messages.
Didam Laah of Invicta FM said that suspense can be introduced into reports writing to capture the attention of audience.
“Also, if you deal with online media, you can use infographics or data related images to pass information across to the public,” he said.
Josiah Otache of Supreme FM, advised that before radio presentations, a signature-tune that is related to the topic should be adopted.
He said difficult words should be avoided, while simple languages should be adopted.
Abdulazeez Ahmed Kadir of Liberty TV and Radio, said that journalists don’t like being guests on programmes.
“There is nothing as interesting as having a group of journalists analysing an issue. Let’s make it a habit to honour invitations to featuring on programmes,” he said.
Ojo Sola of Daily Sun Newspapers said that journalists should avoid writing stories without giving background information to make it easier for the readers to relate with the topic.
He added that journalists should embrace the use of accurate data in giving boost to their reports.
Sola also advised that the stories should be written bearing in mind elements of news worthiness.
“Very important it is our credibility and integrity that gives us more followers. Let’s try to only give out factual information to the public.
“Before you publish or say anything on radio, do your fact check,” he advised.
Aminu Nasir Jasawa Spider FM said that all needed is to embrace professional way of doing the job in getting the message across to the public.
“It all centres on putting professionalism first. Most of those parading as journalists should be citizen journalists,” he said.
In his contribution, Okpani Jacob Onjewu Dickson of the New Nigerian Newspapers advised colleagues to always rely on elements of news worthiness in conveying their messages.
“Let’s go back to the basics, by embracing the elements of news worthiness. For instance, it the target is a community, let the name of the community be in the headline and it takes care of one of the elements of news worthiness, which is proximity,” he submitted.
Eddy Ochigbo of National Accord Newspapers said that cartoons can be used in sending messages to the public.
Femi Johnson from Legal Awareness For Nigerian Women (LEADS), said that some media persons are not adding value to their services.
He urged journalists to be creative and not rely on salaries alone, but develop themselves and set up facilities after acquiring necessary skills.
“Also our reports need to contain the 5Ws and H. In the future, some of us will retire and what would speak for us is our past records,” he added.
Anchoring the second segment that deals with integrating social media engagement issues, Leslie Dongh from KADBEAM said that it is important for journalists to have an idea on how to leverage on social media in sending their messages across.
He explained that, “social media campaign is a series of coordinated activities aimed at achieving or assisting a specific goal over a set period of time, with outcomes that can be traced and measured.”
