By Friday Idachaba, Lokoja
STALLION Times Media Service has called on Media Professionals to dwell more on Investigative Journalism to promote accountability, probity and transparency to enhance egalitarian redistribution of state resources.
Isiyaku Ahmed, Chief Executive Officer and Editor-in-Chief of Stallion Times made the call at a two-day Training Workshop on Investigative Journalism, under the aegis of its “Get Involved, Dialogue and Improve Project (GDRIP).
Ahmed urged the participants who were drawn from the print, electronic and on-line media outfits operating in Kogi to get involved and focus on producing contents that reveal covered and under-reported issues in public interest.
The Stallion Times CEO revealed that the training was designed to build capacity of participants on data gathering and presentation of evidence to expose rights abuses, corruption and sharp practices in the society.
Ahmed said that the workshop aimed to teach participants key skills and techniques used in investigative reporting; Empower journalists on how to write a good pitch for investigative report.
He said that the workshop also aimed to teach participants how to gather data and present evidence to expose rights abuses, corruption or incident.
Ahmed made a presentation on rudiments of “Writing a Pitch for Investigative Report” as well as “Ethical and Legal Issues in Investigative Journalism”.
One of the resource persons, Idris Muhammed who is also a practising journalist and lecturer, took the media personalities through on Data Driven Presentation in Investigative Reports.
Idris reiterated the need for courage, good research skills, clarity of presentation, fairness, balanced reporting, strong ethics, determination and patience as necessities for a good investigative journalist.
In a goodwill message, the Chairman of the Kogi State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Comrade Adeiza Momoh-Jimoh, commended Stallion Times for the training in Investigative Journalism which he described as “a very critical area of the profession.”
He said, “Investigative writing is very important to us as journalists. We should use every opportunity we have to improve our knowledge.
“We should delve more into investigative journalism. We need it to advance the relevance of journalism, correct the ills in the society for a just and egalitarian society to emerge for the better of all of us and our nation”, he said.
The training which was organised by Stallion Times in collaboration with Wole Soyinka Foundation and supported by MacArthur Foundation, deployed up-to-date modules to build and equip capacity of the journalists.
