Episodit
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In this edition, your regular anchor, Abdulkareem Haruna will be talking about the current trending issue on the globe – which is the New Coronavirus, aka COVID-19.
Today we are not going to be talking about what COVID-19 is all about, rather our focus will be on the Media, Journalists and the of the COVID-19.
Yes. The listener may be wondering what this is all about. But in a real sense, I and some professional media colleagues have recently pondered on the challenges facing the Nigerian journalists especially on their need for enablement to do their jobs. How are we the journalists prepared for the coverage and reportage of the Coronavirus pandemic?
We are focusing on the Northeast of Nigeria because it is one of the disadvantaged regions of the country whose case has been made worse by the decade long Boko Haram insurgency.
It is on record that when the Boko Haram insurgency erupted in 2009, the journalists working in the northeast, especially those at the epicenter, Maiduguri, had little or zero ideas about conflict reporting – talk more of conflict-sensitive reporting. We plunged into the frontline reporting with an idea tabula rasa.
The media employers did nothing to help the greenhorn frontline reporters with any skill or tools to enable them to navigate easily. Journalists on their own learned on the job and some paid dearly for the even with their lives. It took about three years before journalists began to get some media training on conflict-sensitive reporting, human angle reporting of the conflict, and the so-called developmental journalism. Today, many have made fortunes being resource persons at such training.
Now the COVID is here and the journalists, just as it was in 2009, are left to veer into the precarious frontline of the covid-19 reporting without any skill, strategy, resource or specialize training.
There is no gain emphasizing that the Nigerian populace needs accurate and timely information on this new coronavirus pandemic more than any other time else. Already, lives are being threatened by the avalanche of fake news that is being reeled out on social media. So the world looks up to the professionally trained mainstream journalists to neutralize the polluted media space with correct, factual, authentic, verifiable and authentic information that would be processed by all and sundry.
It is on this critical note that I call on our media colleagues, not to relent or feel disillusioned but rather step on it and search for new ideas, skills, and resources being made available by our colleagues from other climes that have effectively covered the covid-19 pandemic.
It is heartwarming that reputable media-biased organizations like the ICIJ are putting out resources on their website that we can easily access and use as a guide for us as we braze up to the task of reporting the efforts being made by the authorities in our respective domain in managing the outbreak or spread of the new coronavirus.
Let us also follow the reporting of some of the international media and some of the reputable media houses in Nigeria and see how they are reporting the covid-19, learn from their success and their failures to enrich our own knowledge.
One may ask why am I hammering on the issue of getting kitted for the covid as though it would not end soon. The reality is that experts have espoused on several media outlets that a novel viral outbreak like this takes up to 12 to 18 months for a dependable vaccine to be manufactured to curb its spread. So it means even if Nigeria and all other nations of the world have been able to cut the circulation chain of the covid-19 through the safety measures prescribed by the WHO, the fact remains that until the vaccine is found, COVID-19 remains a threat to all. -
Puuttuva jakso?
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In this episode Journalist Abdul Kareem talks about his journey into Podcasting, how wants to use this channel to discuss issues of conflict in northeast Nigeria
