In our bid to provide more original news for Nigerian readers, we at Zikistmovement.com have applied for an #innovateAFRICA grant to enable us employ correspondents in every state in Nigeria.This is due to our realization that most online news in Nigeria are recycled from print media. 

Even among the biggest blogs/newssites, they just employ people to post news gotten from the websites of our daily papers. Believe me, I should know. So most of what we call original news in Nigeria is just recycled news with a fresh angle mixed into it. Everyone is curating, and no one is producing fresh content in the realest sense of the word.

While new angles to the news have their place in journalism/blogging, there is currently an unhealthy imbalance in the Nigerian social media scene, because there is not enough journalistic standard original content being produced online. This has led to bad user experience as people have fallen victim to plagiarism, over-duplication of content as well as slanderous tripe written in the name of ‘online journalism’.

So, proffessional journalism has been pushed aside, and citizen journalism has been given a bad name. To counter this trend, we aim to employ 36 paid journalists as correspondents in the 36 states of Nigeria to enlarge the amount of journalistic-standard fresh content in Nigeria’s blogosphere.Doing that will give you the reader more choices of news, instead of overflogging the little amount of fresh news the papers give us and then waiting for the next news cycle.

Also, we will employ editors to edit out plagiarism, falsehoods, solecisms and slander, which are currently the bane of Nigerian social media.Our journalists, with their proffessional standards will complement the spontaniety of our bloggers to produce a hybrid practice that will enhance user experience and Nigerian online journalism. While the current bloggers of Zikistmovement.com will keep doing their job, they will be joined by proffessional journalists who will actually move into the beat instead of curating from the desk.

Please Retweet this, Comment on it, Share it, to increase our chances of getting the grant. Start now for more freshly pressed news served to you in a timely manner. Let citizen journalism and proffessional journalism come together to enhance our experience of high quality digital journalism in Nigeria. Let us creat Nigeria’s version of @HuffintonPost. Yes We Can!

Source: http://zikistmovement.igbodefender.com/2016/12/17/zikistmovement-com-needs-your-help-to-become-nigerias-huffington-post/

Nigeria needs such journalistic model. Blogging shouldn't just be about checking Vanguardngr.com and then rewritting their news in one's bed or toilet seat. Send the journalists to the beat to report freshly-pressed news using journalistic standards, and pay them for it.

Dear Nigerian online news reader, kindly help Nigeria's version of Huffington Post become reality by commenting on why you feel Nigeria needs a blog with proffessional journalists on https://web.facebook.com/Charles.Offokaja/posts/1270734096321168?ref=notif&notif_t=like&notif_id=1481817609892394

The reason is clear: we need more professionalism in the blogoshpere. Citizen journalism must be combined with professional journalism to create a balance against falsehoods, slander, plagiarism, etc.#innovateAFRICA

@Gidi_Traffic retweeted our tweet on this. That's a big Vote of confidence for our project. See evidence and retweet here: https://mobile.twitter.com/KajaPrince/status/810076071005716481?p=v

We need your own vote of confidence too. Kindly retweet or comment on the above link. Thanks.

#innovateAFRICA can give Nigeria its version of Huffington Post. Let's make it work! Let's tweet about this.

Zikistmovement.com (Zikist Movement), a pan-Nigerian online publication, has applied to the #innovateAFRICA competition for funds to employ 37 journalists in the 36 states and Abuja, in a bid to inject more freshly pressed news into Nigeria's online media sector, in order to give Nigerian readers the best user experience.

The sponsors of #innovateAFRICA include Omidyar Network, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the CFI, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Media Development Investment Fund, the Global Editors’ Network, and the World Bank.These sponsors have brought out $1 million to give to 10 online media organizations to implement ideas in changing the face of journalism in Africa. While our own idea to employ 36 journalists to bring fresh news from Nigeria's 36 states is bright, there are other ideas competing for a share of that $1 million.

#innovateAFRICA has told us that one of the criteria for selection is for us to get stakeholders to Tweet or Facebook, showing why they think #innovateAFRICA should fund our idea.That is where you come in. Method Of Application: If you know you have what it takes to cover one of Nigeria's 36 states journalistically in return for a monthly salary that is roughly $100 /N50, 000- the threshold amount Goggle Adsense pays bloggers- at today's exchange rate, then join us in https://mobile.twitter.com/KajaPrince/status/811441994723684352?p=v to let #innovateAFRICA know why you think they should give us the money.

They are ready to give us money to cover at least 12 months salary for all the 36 reporters and other things. And if we are serious, after that we should be standing on our 2 feet with enough constant advert revenue to pay everyone's salary going forward.Job

Shortlisting Criteria: Zikist Movement will only shortlist applicants who tweet on the link we provided above at least 9 times between now and December 29, 2016. One of your tweets should be your email address to enable us contact you should you make at least 9 valid tweets. 

Job Requirements: You should also have what it takes to report news based on the 5 Ws and H. You should be able to work without supervision and with a cool head, and have an eye and ear for interesting news. We will not be accepting news curation of news that is already online, so, you should be able to meet your fresh news target each day. You should be able to write a quick news report on your phone, snap photos and post. Previous work in a nespaper will be interesting but is not absolutely key.

Note: Interviews and employment will depend on if we get the grant, so let's get tweeting and keep our CV up to date.For more information contact: Igbodefender@gmail.comZikistmovement believes in creating the best user experience by marrying citizen journalism and professional journalism.

We are almost there, by the grace of God.

#innovateAFRICA. We will infuse new excitement in digital journalism in Nigeria. We will make it richer incontent. Bloggers will get a lot of material from us for their blog.

We are modeled after Huffington Post which has both citizen journalists and professional journalists.#innovateAFRICA

With #innovateAFRICA grant, Africa's version of Huffington Post is surely going to mean more interesting news for your eyeballs. Merry Xmas everyone. And a prosperous New Year.

Here's to wishing us all a prosperous new year.

See the letter #innovateAFRICA sent us some days ago; and see why you should support our bid ( https://web.facebook.com/Charles.Offokaja/posts/1270734096321168?pnref=story ).

Dear applicant

We're writing to inform you that we're only going to announce the 50 shortlisted finalists on December 30.We've postponed the shortlist announcement to ensure that our team of technical reviewers is able to thoroughly evaluate every single application. We originally expected roughly 400 applications to innovateAFRICA, but had a fantastic response and received 736 by the submission deadline.

We have expanded the shortlist review team to help process the extra applications, but even so are extending the review timelines to ensure that we do justice to every proposal.The delayed announcement of shortlisted finalists will not impact on the final judging, which will begin on January 15 and will aim to be ready to announce winners by January 30.In the interim, please continue rallying support for your projects on Twitter and Facebook, using the #innovateAFRICA hashtag.

As one of the selection criteria, the jury will consider whether you are able to demonstrate stakeholder support.

Sincerely,
The innovateAFRICA Team

OUR SPONSORS:innovateAFRICA’s partners include Omidyar Network (http://www.omidyar.com/) , the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (http://www.gatesfoundation.org/) , the CFI (http://www.cfi.fr/en) , the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation (http://www.knightfoundation.org/) , the Media Development Investment Fund (http://www.mdif.org/) (MDIF), the Global Editors’ Network (http://www.globaleditorsnetwork.org/) (GEN) and the World Bank (http://www.worldbank.org/) .

Below you will see more about Huffington Post, the American site whose business model we want to replicate if we get the #innovateAFRICA grant:

The Huffington Post (sometimes abbreviated Huff Post or HuffPo) is a left-leaning[2] American online news aggregator and blog that has both localized and international editions founded by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, Jonah Peretti, and briefly, Andrew Breitbart,[3][4] featuring columnists.[5] The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content and covers politics, business, entertainment, environment, technology, popular media, lifestyle, culture, comedy, healthy living, women's interests, and local news.

The Huffington Post was launched on May 9, 2005 as an overtly liberal/left commentary outlet and alternative to news aggregators such as the Drudge Report,[6][7][8] and some still consider it to espouse liberal views.[9][10][11] On February 7, 2011, AOL acquired the mass market[12] Huffington Post for US$315 million, making Arianna Huffington editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post Media Group.[13][14]

In July 2012, The Huffington Post was ranked #1 on the 15 Most Popular Political Sites list by eBizMBA Rank, which bases its list on each site's Alexa Global Traffic Rank and U.S. Traffic Rank from both Compete and Quantcast.[15] In 2012, The Huffington Post became the first commercially run United States digital media enterprise to win a Pulitzer Prize.

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Huffington_Post