Daria Media trains journalists ahead of 2019 polls

Ahead of the 2019 elections, Daria Media Limited has organised a two-day training for select political editors.

Ten editors were drawn from TheCable, Punch, The Guardian, ThisDay, New Telegraph, Vanguard, The Sun, Nigerian Info FM, Radio Nigeria and Daily Trust to attend the training which held in Lagos on Friday and Saturday.

The training focused on effective ethical coverage of the forthcoming elections was facilitated by consultants from The Thomson Foundation and with the support of MacArthur Foundation.

One of the participants, said the training presents a unique opportunity to improve capacity for better practice, not only in covering elections starting in February, but also investigative journalism.

For Daily Trust’s Hamza Idris, the timing is apt, just few days to the 2019 general election and at a time the attention of the whole world is on Nigeria.

“As a political reporter, my biggest take from the workshop is the “Election Charter for Journalists in Nigeria” which we came up with after rigorous brainstorming by all of us, the 10 political editors present at the training with massive input from Kadaria Ahmed and Ian Beales. I strongly feel that if we all adhere to the content of the Charter, we would have a hitch free coverage of the election,” he said.

Bimbola Amao of Daria Media said the organisation was driven to host the workshop so as to fill a need. She said the workshop became necessary because ethical election reporting had become critically important as journalists get pulled into enforcing fault line in not only Nigeria but globally.

“We believe that the press has a major role to play in promoting democracy and civic participation in governance. This can be achieved through accuracy, fairness and balance in their reporting especially during delicate times such as the election period,” she said.

At the end of the workshop, the editors adopted an election charter for journalists in Nigeria which sets the threshold of fundamental values by which the media can be judged.