The International Centre for Investigative Reporting, ICIR, has reminded journalists working in Nigeria and media houses to do more critical reports that will hold powerful individuals to account for their actions or inaction in the overall interest of the citizens.
The ICIR said doing this demands that media organisations in Nigeria devise means to empower their staff to produce more accountability-driven content to sustain themselves and meet their civic journalistic obligations.
The ICIR said this in a communique issued at the end of its 10th Anniversary conference held at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel Abuja with the theme: Media Sustainability in Nigeria.
Read: EDITORIAL: The ICIR @10: Celebrating The Beacon Of Hope For Newsrooms And Journalists In Nigeria
“To become commercially viable, media owners must invest in news gathering and effectively fund journalists to do good stories. Journalists must not shy away from holding the government accountable, as that is one of the ways media could become relevant as the Fourth Estate of the Realm.
“The media, in view of sustainability discourse, needs to explore new content generation opportunities and must be ready to diversify into areas where they have core competence, by coming up with products like music, movies, documentaries as well as other educational and entertainment concepts.
“The media needs to leverage the power of collaboration. At tables where conversations on global investigations e.g Wikileaks, Panama Papers and so on happens, African media must collaborate and ensure it is ably represented. African media must not be seen as purchasers of global content but must take its place as generators of global content,” the communique signed by Dayo Aiyetan, the Executive Director of the ICIR read in parts.
WikkiTimes reports that Mr Bongani Siqoko, Chairman, Arena Holdings, South Africa, delivered the keynote address with a panel discussion that drew participants from the academia and media industry.
