EfD Nigeria organized a one-day workshop for journalists covering environmental beats in major Nigerian media on Wednesday, October 13, 2021. The journalists expressed excitement over the EfD’s website as a repository of reliable resources for environmental reporting.
Petra Hansson, EfD’s Web Editor, made a virtual presentation on “Using EfD as a Resource in your Environmental Reporting” to the 16 journalists.
Professor Emmanuel Oladipo, the Chairman, Policy Advisory Panel of EfD Nigeria, made a presentation on “Environmental issues in Nigeria and the role of journalists in dealing with the Challenges”. Donald Ugwu, an editor from News Agency of Nigeria, talked about “Communication strategy for tracking the implementation of Nigeria key environmental policies- NDC/Climate Change”. All the presentations stirred reactions from the journalists.
“The workshop was a step in the right direction, I thank EfD Nigeria for the initiative. We need this type of training from time to time to boost our capacity. I am very impressed with the resources on EfD’s website, it is going to help me in my job,” said Michael Simire, the publisher of Enviro News.
“It was quite illuminating and incisive. Though I have been writing and editing reports on the environment, today’s workshop has highlighted the need to give priority to the area. I must say that the EfD site provides reliable data for quality environmental reporting,” said Mr Magnus Eze, South-East regional Editor, Sun Newspaper.
“I am highly delighted with today’s workshop; it has added to my knowledge about environmental challenges in Nigeria. Going forward, I hope to take advantage of the resources in EfD’s website in my news analysis”, Mrs Vivian Emoni, a Correspondent with News Agency of Nigeria, said.
The Director of EfD Nigeria, Dr Nnaemka Chukwuone, said that the workshop was organized to assemble a team of reliable journalists that would partner with EfD Nigeria in its future policy engagements with the government.
“We needed to enlighten them on contemporary environmental issues in Nigeria so that they would understand and support our research and policy efforts,” Dr Nnaemeka Chukwuone said.
The workshop also received the blessings of the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Nigeria, Professor Charles Igwe, who welcomed the journalists in his conference room.
Charles Igwe charged them to be proactive in reporting issues on environmental sustainability instead of waiting for disaster to happen before coming up with breaking news.
By Inya Agha Egwu