Stallion Times Urges Journalists, CSOs to Embrace Effective Use of Social Media

By Rashida Salihu Ozavize

Stallion Times, in collaboration with the Wole Soyinka Center for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) and the MacArthur Foundation, organized a one-day training on the effective use of social media for media professionals and civil society organizations (CSOs) in Kano state on Saturday.

The training was designed to teach media professionals how to embrace social media by telling compelling stories, while CSOs learned how to use social media platforms to promote good governance and accountability through the use of text and visuals. 

Ahmed Isiyaku, Executive Director of Stallion Times Media Services and Project Coordinator for “Get Involved Dialogue and Improve (G-DRIP),” stated that the reason for organizing such a workshop was simply to fill a gap that had been identified.

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He lamented that people, primarily journalists and civil society organizations, do not usually find solace in posting or creating content for impact or change, rather than posting hilariously about their personal lives, which he said could expose them to serious security threats.

“For these and other reasons, we have organized this workshop to teach journalists and media professionals how to generate ideas for compelling social media content.” 

Isiyaku continued. “As for civil societies, those who equally write can also create content on social media platforms about their grassroots activities.”

”This we think can create impact, can bring a change in what we have been advocating for, for good governance, anti-corruption and for development.”

He encouraged participants to use the knowledge they had gained to tell stories that would have an impact.

Mallam Isah Ali Musa, the workshop’s facilitator and a Research Scholar at the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council, expressed that the use of social media cannot be overemphasized as it has so many branches and different ways of usage.

He stated that in this digital age, it is unavoidable for journalists and CSOs to have the necessary knowledge of how to create compelling content in order to engage their audience and hold governments at the local, state, and federal levels accountable.

He also challenged the participants to raise their game, warning them about the threats that the arrival of Artificial Intelligence (AI) poses to their jobs.