The Bauchi council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) has trained 140 journalists in the state in global best journalism practices in the past year, the state chairman of the council, Mr Umar Sa’id stated on Tuesday.
In an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Bauchi, Sa’id said various trainings were conducted on peace, cybercrime, security and disaster reporting for both broadcast and print media practitioners in the state.
He added that the journalists were also trained on reporting gender and sexual-based violence.
“Within one year in office, we were able to train 140 out of the 350 journalists in the state, who had participated in one training or the other. We also saw the need to train some reasonable number of casual staff from various state-owned media organisations.
“Aside from reporting general security issues, journalists learnt personal safety techniques because our personal safety is paramount in discharging our duties,” he said.
Sa’id stated that some of the trainings were organised in collaboration with the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and the U.S Embassy, emphasising that training and re-training of journalists were vibrant tools for human development, especially in a multi-sectoral society.
He said that as agenda setters, journalists in the state would continue to project developmental issues that impact on the lives of general public, urging journalists to also focus on human angle stories, as the voice of the voiceless. (NAN)
