Journalists mark International women’s Day with share-fair

‘Report Women: Make It Happen’ was the theme of a share-fair amongst journalists held on Friday 13 March 2015, to commemorate the ‘International Women’s Day’.

The event was organised by the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism and its partner the Netherlands Embassy to contribute to improving the quality, quantum and perhaps impact of reportage on girls and women and to better mainstream gender into news reporting.

The forum brought together journalists and members of non-governmental organisations to reflect on the challenges facing Nigerian girls and women. The idea was to build the capacity of participants while lending a voice to the theme of the 2015 United Nations International Women’s Day – Make It Happen.

 At the meeting, five journalists who were commissioned by the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism to investigative and publish stories on girls and women issues ranging from widowhood, to Female Genital Mutilation and to Human Trafficking, had opportunity to share their experiences with colleagues.

The journalists, Simon Ateba of The News; Abiose Adams-Adelaja of International Centre for Investigative Reporting; Tosin Oladosu-Adebowale of World Pulse; Bamgbose Temiloluwa of Flair Nigeria and Isioma Madike of New Telegraph are among thirty-two reporters given small grants to do investigate reports under the report women project which started in 2014.

Participants at the Report Women: Make It Happen share-fair worked together to highlight strategies to improve and increase the reportage of girls and women in Nigeria and committed to doing same.

Report Women!, a collaborative effort between the Royal Netherlands Embassy and the WSCIJ focuses on major issues of access and abuse, ranging from education, to health care, violence, and early marriage, among others.

The project seeks to use the tool of investigative reporting to highlight these issues, even as it examines the role of religion in the girl child and woman’s rights trajectory.

It started in May 2014 with a one-month media monitoring of the reportage of girls and women in seven Nigerian newspapers. Shortly after, a stakeholders’ meeting and three investigative journalism trainings aimed at honing participants’ skills on the reportage of girls and women issues held in Lagos, Ekiti, Cross River and Abuja.

 These were followed by the administration of small grants to 32 journalists who investigated and wrote issue-based stories on girls and women. Some of these stories are available on probeng.org an investigative report website facilitated by the WSCIJ.

The Report Women project includes an award, the production of an investigative documentary, and the publication of a reporter’s resource guide on reporting girls and women.

 The project, which is expected to run till May 2015, has an online campaign on the Centre’s social media platforms especially its Twitter handle – twitter.com/WSoyinkaCentre using the hashtag #ReportWomen.

 Report Women is a modest attempt towards promoting girls’ and women’s rights as human rights, and ensuring a more gender-balanced society through the media.

The Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) is a non-governmental organisation with a vision to stimulate the emergence of a socially just community defined by the ethics of inclusion, transparency and accountability through support to journalists.

The Centre is named after Professor Wole Soyinka in recognition of his life-long work in support of the freedom of expression, freedom to hold opinion and freedom to impart them without fear or favour and without hindrance or interference.

Last year, it would recall that in continuation of its Report Women! Project, the Wole Soyinka Center for Investigative Journalism, WSCIJ went into partnership with the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Nigeria concerning the Report Women training programme for selected journalist in the South-South region of Nigeria with an aim to promote the under reportage of girls’ and women’ issues in the media.

The training was held at Calabar, Nigeria, and it focused on issues of access and abuse; ranging from education to healthcare, violence, early marriage among others; using the tool of investigative reporting, also examined the role of religion in the girl child and women’s rights trajectory.

Resource persons present at the event were the Founder of the WSCIJ, Dapo Olorunyomi and the Investigative Editor of Premium Times, Musikilu Mojeed, Toyin Akinniyi, Programme Officer, WSCIJ and Motunrayo Alaka, Coordinator, WSCIJ.

The training contents include; Effective interviewing, Cultural focus for reporting girls and women in eastern Nigeria, Media ethics and professionalism, Laws and policies on girls and women rights, source referencing amongst others. After the training, participants of the workshop were expected to embark on issues-based stories on girls and women with best report getting an award. Speaking on the programme, participants said the event was good and at the right time, when women and the girl- child were under reported especially on issues like rape, abuse and other related issues affecting them.

In the past, a total of two hundred and three reporters were trained during the pilot edition of the Pro-Engage: House-to-House project conceived by the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism and executed through funding partnership with the British High Commission.

The initiative, which held from Monday 19 to Friday 30 January 2015, took advocacy for investigative reporting from one media house in Nigeria to the other. It provided capacity support for the creation and or improvement of investigative reporting desks in eight selected media houses in Lagos and Abuja.

                                                                                                                                         The media houses trained are The New Telegraph, Media Trust, The Leadership, The Nation, The Guardian, The Premium Times, The News and Television Continental. The Wole Soyinka Centre staff alongside its faculty comprising veteran investigative journalism professionals visited seven media houses to conduct the training for members of staff and followed up with workshops for representatives of the eight media houses.

The faculty for the capacity development programme included Prof Lai Oso, Dean of the School of Communication of the Lagos State University (LASU); Mr Dapo Olorunyomi, WSCIJ Founder; Mr Theophilus Abbah, Sunday Editor, Media Trust; Mr Solomon Adebayo, Senior Correspondent, Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria; and Mr Musikilu Mojeed, Editor, Premium Times. The experience of the Wole Soyinka Centre proves that there is a need for continuous training and retraining of media professionals to ensure the revival of the culture of investigative reporting.

At the end of the maiden House-to-House project, the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism and its partner, the British High Commission directly reached journalists from all cadres of the media with the advocacy for investigative journalism. The Centre is convinced that the intervention will contribute to improved thoroughness of news reporting and better position the Nigerian media to effectively perform its role in shaping the polity.