Following its maiden colloquium, WikkiTimes issued a communique advocating collaboration among media houses to strengthen fearless and factual accountability reporting.
Participants of the event during three-panel sessions led by nine panellists called on media houses to team up and rub minds to ensure successful investigative journalism.
“Collaboration in accountability journalism is powerful for wider penetration and reach,” the platform said in a communique signed by its publisher and Editor-In-Chief, Haruna Mohammed Salisu. “Media organisations carrying accountability reports must learn to dive into the world of collaboration with other media outlets who share the passion of investigative journalism.”
“For effective and deeper penetration, news outlets must adopt multiple means of disseminating information in view of the changing pattern of media consumption.
“Stories should be presented in a multimedia format to allow readers to make choices as to how they want to engage with media content; Moreso, because of the idea that audio-visuals summarize and illustrate news stories for easy understanding among readers.
“The Nigerian media, through their reportage, must not only fulfil their natural calling of holding leaders accountable but must also strive to effectively inform, educate and mobilize the citizens for national progress and development.
“Media outlets must not ignore grassroots journalism; local actors at local levels must equally be held accountable.
“Publishers and owners of broadcast stations must make deliberate attempts at training and re-training employees to meet up with current changes in ways of reporting and news presentation,” he stated.
Also, WikkiTimes emphasized the need to embrace evolving media technology inventions in order to keep up with trends in the use of reporting tools and ease difficulties.
“The Nigerian media must strongly invest in newer technologies for them to compete favourably. Media technology and reporting tools are evolving, hence the need to have the needed expertise and knowledge of these technologies to stymie contemporary challenges,” the publisher said. “Building trust, credibility and believability between media organisations and its audience is critical, if the media must remain relevant in the business.”
“The Nigerian legacy media must invest heavily in grassroots accountability journalism, failure of which will relegate them as tools for politicians to exploit. Practising accountability journalism demands a lot of patience, time and resources.
“This underscores why journalists who subscribed to this brand of journalism must be fearless, brutal and above all careful with their facts; the terrain does not forgive the simplest of errors or ignorance.
“For the Nigerian democracy to unleash appreciable progress, the media must always be ready to tell truth to power, hold leaders accountable and mobilize the citizens for national integration,” he added.
