Journalists, especially veterans have been urged to scale up their digital skills to enable them improve their career prospects and earning potentials.
A digital expert Paul Chimodo gave the advice at a one-day capacity building workshop on ‘Maximising New Media Platforms’ organised by Step-up for Women In Journalism Initiative (SWIJ), with support from Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) and the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Rivers State Chapter.
He noted that ego has prevented some veteran journalists from upscaling their digital skills, as many are stuck in old fashion media practice.
The digital expert highlighted the importance of digital tools in today’s journalism practice and emphasized the need for training and retraining to meet up with current demands of the job.
He also posited that most challenges faced by journalists are self-inflicted as they have failed to update themselves on current digital tools
which hinder them from reaching their full potentials and becoming visible in the present new media era.
Chimodo emphasized the need for journalists to identify the social media tools that align with their line of job and build presence on it so as to gain from opportunities that abound from such tools.
He also pointed out that social media has made it easier for journalists to collaborate on stories with other journalists, photographers, and videographers adding that collaborations can help journalists reach a wider audience, tell more complex stories, and provide a more comprehensive perspective on events.
Chimodo listed some ways journalists can utilize digital tools to include; Live streaming, Facebook/ Instagram stories, Twitter threads, Podcasts among others.
Earlier in her address, the Executive Director of SWIJ, Ann Godwin, said the training was targeted at scaling up the digital skills of journalists especially female reporters to enable them grow their professional competence and match with their international counterparts.
She said the era where journalists rely on their years of practice, experience and unnecessary competition for successful practice is gone.
Highpoint of the workshop, was training on entrepreneurial skills by Dr. Ijeoma Tubosia, a broadcast journalist and an entrepreneur.
Tubosia, who trained participants on Turban hat making, emphasized the need for women journalists to learn skills and have multiple sources of income in order to meet up with the economic demands in the country.
On her part, Constance Mega, a broadcast journalist with Nig Info, Port Harcourt, who took the participants on Enhancing Speaking Skills, said constant rehearsals, practicing will improve their speaking skills.
