Chukwudi Nweje
Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) has charged media editorial managers and practitioners on the need to make their reporting people-orientated if they are to remain relevant in the prevailing global COVID-19 and post-pandemic era.
The Guild said the media business is about people and that practitioners should focus more “on people-centre reporting to generate the needed resources for the sustainability of media industry.”
It charged editors to “begin to think as marketing officers and develop well-researched products that will respond to yearnings of the people across all segments of the economy at all times.
“The media business is about people at all levels, therefore practitioners should be less obsessed with government officials and focus on people-centre reporting to generate the needed resources for the sustainability of the media industry. This has become necessary if they are to be relevant and remain in business in the age of digitalisation and global COVID-19 pandemic,” the Guild said.
The body of editors said this in a communiqué issued and signed by Chairman of Media Trust Limited, publishers of Daily Trust newspapers, Kabiru Yusuf, at the end of the 16th annual conference of the Guild held via Zoom.
The conference, with the theme, ‘Media, People and COVID-19: How to Create Sustainability in the Digital Era’, explored new ways to create contents, with aesthetics and overall values, that would sustain media as a business in the country.
The NGE made far-reaching recommendations, including periodic engagement with media audiences and communities to find out about their habits and preferences to create engaging contents for the consumers; need for practitioners to adopt creative use of new technologies to generate revenue, by employing programmers, data scientists, information and communications technology specialists, need for regular capacity building interventions to ensure the knowledge and content provided are relevant and applicable to the needs of the reading public.
The conference emphasised that while there are several options for making money through digitalisation of media businesses, it is almost impossible to make a living without a large following. Therefore, efforts should be made to connect with the people, improve aspects of readers’ lives and obsess more with the audience through creative contents.
While identifying huge potential in archiving photographs and offering of transcripts as reliable means of generating new streams of income, it canvassed fresh air in the media space through the use of creative headlines.
The Guild remembered and observed a minute silence for colleagues that died in the last one year, including Wada Maida, a former NGE president; Ronke Fajemirokun of BCOS, Ibadan; Diji Akinhanmi, OGBC general manager, Abeokuta; Waheed Bakare, Editor, New Telegraph on Saturday; Musa Ahmed Tijjani, Editor, Triumph Newspapers, Kano and Abba Ado Gwarzo, a retired NTA staff.