COVID-19: Experts task young journalists on factual reporting, safety precautions

Youths Digest, the organiser of annual Campus Journalism Awards & Dialogue, has trained young journalists on factual reporting and safety precautions to be observed while reporting the Coronavirus pandemic.

The training which was organised in collaboration with the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, CISLAC featured a series of online seminars facilitated by prominent journalists, student union leaders and media experts.

The first phase of the training was coordinated by Jonathan Rozen, Senior Africa Program Researcher of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ); Nasir Adhama, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Youth and Student Affairs and Coordinator of the National Youth Task Force on COVID-19.

The duo engaged the participants in digital security. 

Also, Ibrahim Ramalan, Editor of Daily Nigerian Newspaper; Akintunde Babatunde, Programme Manager at Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism; and Azeezat Adedigba, an award-winning journalist with Premium Times Newspaper, facilitated in three other series of the training that looked at various themes.

In his seminar chat, Rozen spoke on the need to use digital tools in protecting journalists and their works, including verifying news items to avoid fake news.

Also speaking during the chat, Adhama lamented that journalists were fighting two pandemics at the same time: “COVID19 and fake news”.

He, however, urged campus journalists to desist from reporting fake news.

Ramalan, on his part, tutored young journalists on how to gather, write and report news stories on the Coronavirus, just as Babatunde exposed campus journalists to steps to fact-check their news stories before publishing them. 

Speaking on the need to encourage more women in journalism, Adedigba emphasised the need for newsrooms to put measures in place towards ensuring gender balance and sensitivity.

Earlier in a short video, Comrade Auwal Rafsanjani, Executive Director of CISLAC, praised Youths Digest for organising the online workshops, assuring them of CISLAC's continuous support.

In his remarks, Youths Digest editor, Gidado Shuaib, said though the online seminars organised to train student-journalists have ended, their online publication will soon introduce new activities to engage campus journalists during the lockdown.

“The Youths Digest will also be holding its Workers' Day online chat on May 1st, 2020, on Twitter.

“The chat will be facilitated by Mr Lekan Otufodunrin, Executive Director of Media Career Services.

“Mr Otufodunrin will speak on ‘Tips for building a successful career in journalism’,” the editor pointed out.