By Chigozie Chukwuleta
Premium Times through the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) has continued to make significant impact in Investigative Journalism by training and retraining of practitioners. One special aspect has been the unique perspective of Campus Reporters Program which provides young aspiring journalists with valuable guidance and hands-on experience. The train of the program stopped at Nnamdi Azikiwe University recently where students of UNIZIK, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University and Federal Polytechnic, Oko were trained
In this exclusive interview, Mr. Idris Akinbajo, Managing Editor of Premium Times, shared the vision behind the Campus Reporters program, outlined future plans for the initiative and enjoined Nigerian universities to embrace reality in journalism teaching
Excerpts…..
Q. What is the dream behind Campus Reporter?
A. The dream is to prepare young Nigerians, young Africans who are interested in journalism for the outside world. The dream is to equip them with necessary skills, tools, that they need right from when they are on campus so that they can start doing stories from when they are on campus and also be prepared to be easily employable or create their own media enterprise. So what we’ve seen is that there is a huge disconnect between the town and the gown, between the teachings in the universities and the practical application on the field. So what we do at Premium Times and CJID is we partner together, go to campuses and teach the students the practicalities of journalism so that they are prepared for when they graduate and even start practicing from when they are on campus.
Q. For how long has this project been on?
A. This project has been on for I think almost seven or eight years now. I’m not too sure but I’ve been joining as a facilitator for at least over five years.
Q. Can you tell us what This project has benefited Premium Times, CJID.
A. Premium Times is a newsroom. At Premium Times, part of the benefits we have had from this process is that for the past four or five years or so, almost half of the journalists we have recruited were former campus journalists. While they were on campus, they were writing stories, After graduation, they join premium times as interns or NYSC members and then we retain them because they have demonstrated capacity to do good journalism right from when they were on campus after their training. And we have so many of them, Kabir Adejino, Chiamaka Okafor, Alfred, Oge Udegbunam, Yakubu Muhammad, Kossim, so many from different schools. From schools like UNIZIK, UNN, Obafemi Awolowo University, Usman Danfodio University, across Nigeria. Many of them have joined The Premium Times. Some have left The Premium Times to join bigger international media organizations. We are happy for them. Many of them, if not all of them started practicing journalism from campus, they joined Premium Times, then they grew up. But beyond Premium Times, other newsrooms, if you look at almost all the young journalists who are shining brightly in Nigerian media space today, whether at Daily Trust or at Channels, whether at ICIR or others they were former campus journalists.
Q. Ok, when you look at the number of universities you’ve covered in Nigeria, are there some other institutions you are still looking out for to actually take this gospel of campus journalism to?
A. What we are looking out for is more to assist the academia into teaching practicalities. What we’ve seen is that the graduates of mass communication or journalism proper or English language who did not undergo this campus journalism training, when they graduate and we test them, it’s clear that there is a huge gap between what our professors are teaching on campus and the realities of journalism. So the gap that we are still trying to fill is, apart from this one week training, because we are here for one week and then we leave, we want to see how we can work with the academics. To see how we can partner to help them, one, improve their curriculum, partner them in real teaching the practicalities of journalism beyond the theories that are taught in class. Some universities are already doing that with us. The B.U.K., for example, sends its professors, its teachers to come and do three weeks internship at Premium Times and see the idea. The university says, okay, forget the theory you are experts at go and learn the practicalities of journalism so that by the time you come back to your school, you know how to better practicalize what you are teaching. And so many across the world, academics are realizing that it’s not enough to just be teaching theories in class. That’s why in the US, many of the journalism professors were former journalists who had practiced journalism for 10, 15, 20 years. You don’t see that enough in Nigeria. So the program that we are still trying to develop is beyond the weekly trainings we do across about 40 campuses now, to partner with academics. How we can share knowledge, learn from them they learn from us and overall it improves the training they give to these aspiring journalists over their four years or five years of schooling.
Q. In this project what can you say has been the major challenge?
A. The major challenge has been funding. First, thank God we’ve been able to get some funding. This particular trip here is funded by the Norwegian Embassy because to try to transport facilitators, to even transport the students, those things cost money. Somebody has to pay for it. So, getting somebody to buy into the project is not a small tadk. Although, thank God, we are up to now about 40 universities in Nigeria and Ghana. That’s a lot. So, we’ve been able to sustain it, but we need more support. Funding is the major challenge. The second major challenge is to get cooperation from universities. Some universities are still rigid about partnerships with media and CSOs. Some, like Nnamdi Azikiwe University, and few others are very open to such partnerships. But some universities, I don’t want to mention names, still do not understand that they need to have such partnerships to be able to improve the capacity of their students.
Q. So what is your word to the young journalists you just trained, even those who are not here who might still have interest?
A. My word for them is, do not rely on what you are being taught in school. Many of it, if not most, will not be useful for you young graduates. See yourself as students who are competing in the global sphere. If you cannot rely on what they are teaching you in music to be able to compete with students who are graduating from Harvard, you have to ask yourself, what are they teaching them in Harvard? What are they teaching them at the University of Amsterdam? What are they teaching them at Chicago State University? That’s part of what we try to do with this training. We bring those global trainings down to these university students for one week. But after that, it is now time to start applying the knowledge you have learnt. From campus, there is a campus reportage website in the CJID. Start writing stories about your campus. There are editors that will work with you to refine your stories and make you get better right from when you are on campus. Take advantage of that opportunity. And you can start pitching stories and making legitimate money even while you are a student. So I urge students to take advantage of it.
Q. What is your word to Nigerian universities, especially those who have Mass Communication, and other Communication related courses?
A. Nigerian academics have to come down from the aisles. Nigerian academics, they really have to come down from the aisles. I mean, sometimes when you hear some of the policies of our Department of Mass Comms, Faculty of Arts, about their Masters program, PhD program for experienced journalists, you just smile and say, these people don’t know the reality. Sometimes when you’re fortunate to attend some classes when Nigerian academics teach programs about journalism to their students, you just want to say, these people, they really need to improve their capacity. Nigerian academics really have to come down from the aisles. They really have to, some of them have to go back to the field and really see what’s really happening in the field, in journalism. And that’s what this program, the opportunity that CJID offers. There are so many academics now who now do real empirical research by impartiality with CJID, get funding from CJID to do real research because CJID is being deliberate about creating partnerships between universities and organizations like Premium Times. They facilitate research, facilitate trainings, facilitate partnerships. And I think our academics need to take the opportunity, especially with government not funding research and not funding these kind of partnerships.
