Rasheeda Salihu Ozavize
Stallion Times Media Services on Thursday trained 40 journalists from different media organisations in Kano State on the rudiments of investigative journalism and how to utilise multimedia newsrooms.
Stallion Times Media Services Ltd. is implementing a 3-year Participatory Governance and Media Literacy project tagged “Get Involved, Dialogue and Improve (G-DRIP)” in Kano and Kogi states under the Collaborative Media Project (Collaborating for media independence and government accountability), funded by the MacArthur Foundation.
However, multimedia newsroom training is part of the fifth activity of Stallion Times in its 2-year of the G-DRIP Project.
In a welcoming address, the G-DRIP Program Coordinator, and the CEO of Stallion Times, Isiyaku Ahmed, said: “In this initiative, we are looking to, amongst other things, build the capacity of media practitioners on investigative reporting, journalism ethics, safety, media literacy, independence, and sustainability.
“Today, we come to you with the multimedia newsroom training workshop.
“In today’s world of media convergence, news storytelling has changed. The way people consume news has also changed. Traditional news outlets are now evolving towards content convergence in the media space.
“News organisations have moved to multimedia, using multi-platforms to tell stories.”
He added that “reporters and editors needed to be empowered and equipped with the necessary skills that would make them tell stories in social spaces, which now accommodate a large audience.
“We at Stallion Times recognise the importance of embracing and using new technologies and platforms to effectively convey stories that resonate with the audience in the digital age.
“This workshop, therefore, is designed to introduce the concept of multimedia newsroom storytelling that caters to all sorts of audiences and platforms.
“It will help journalists appreciate the use of technology to deliver investigative reports in a blend of text, static images, animation, video, and audio clips.”
Ahmed urged journalists: “We expect that you will gain practical hands-on experience with our resource persons in writing and producing reports and adopt the multimedia approach to improve your investigative report writing skills.
“As you equip yourselves on how to explore the different multimedia platforms for telling compelling stories, we urge you to step down this training in your organisations to enhance your newsroom storytelling approach.”
Read also: Stallion Times Urges Journalists, CSOs to Embrace Effective Use of Social Media
The Kano State NUJ, Chairman, Comrade Abass Ibrahim also called on journalists to actively engaged themselves and be be conversant with the multimedia skills.
He added that journalism nowadays has developed another new dimension of storytelling than that of the conventional media.
In the first session of the paper presentation, the resource person, Professor Mainasara Kurfi, a lecturer at Bayero University Kano in the department of mass communication, taught journalists the rudiments of investigative journalism.
He explained that journalists have to engage themselves in writing investigative stories that will be of public interest.
While presenting his second paper on the multimedia newsroom, Prof. Kurfi said the significance of the multimedia newsroom in investigative reports is to increase reach, greater engagement, improved storytelling, reputation, and revenue.
In an interview with some of the participants of the event, Hauwa Ibrahim of Daily News24 said, “The training is insightful, most especially the multimedia aspect that teaches journalists how to tell stories in different formats.
“I will also step down the training for other colleagues in my organisation.”
Another participant, Abdullahi Isah, Station Manager of Saleh Radio, applauded Stallion Times for their unrestful training just to ensure journalists are following the trends of journalism.
“I will as well implement the training in my radio station to tell stories using different social media application tools, such as Canva and Insta Shot.”
As part of Stallion Times 3-year GRIP project, the media services has conducted its fifth activity, which is the last training in the 2-year GDRIP activity in Kano and Kogi.
