NITDA Trains 585 Media Personnel On Digital Journalism  

As part of efforts to promote digital literacy,  the National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA, has trained 586 media personnel in the last three years.

This was disclosed by Hadiza Umar, Head of Corporate Communication at NITDA, at the closing ceremony of a 5-Day training for 20 journalists in Abuja.

During the training on Cybersecurity and how journalists can use the internet and various social media tools to advance their work, a Social Media expert, Miss Faith Onobong, engaged journalists on productive ways to source and distribute news online using Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Mr. Hughes Dimka, a technology expert who handled the session on digital skills, took participants through real-time reporting and collaboration using Google Docs, keeping themselves and their data safe from online hackers and abusers, and Artificial Intelligence.

The closing ceremony was attended by Chairman of the NUJ FCT chapter, Emmanuel Ogeche and some members of his exco.

In her remarks, Umar urged all participants to utilize all that had been learned at the training in their newsrooms to advance journalism in Nigeria.

The NUJ chairman who was represented by former President of the Nigeria Association of Women Journalists, Evelyn Onyilo, applauded NITDA’s collaboration with NUJ.

He said, “One of the assignments the Fresh Start Mandate undertook was to open discussions with institutions- public and private- that would advance our work. The National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA, was one such place.

“Even when it appeared impossible, we kept pushing. Today, we are witnessing the climax of a beautiful experience where our resource persons: Dimkat and Faith, have taken us through the relevant ICT foundations that would make us have a deeper understanding of our tasks as journalists.

“This training has emphasized the importance of digital literacy to our work as journalists. It has brought to the fore the importance of the nuances of safety with increasing surveillance by state and non-state actors on the work we do and placed us on alert to navigate the challenges as much as possible.”

He further urged the DG of NITDA, Dr. Kashifu Abdullahi, and his management to consider doing more of such training to improve the skill gap in the Journalism industry in 2023 and beyond.

According to Umar, “NITDA in the past three years has trained over 508,199 persons in different sectors across the federation, including media professionals, youth, teachers, PWDs and judges, amongst others.

“We have trained 65 media executives and 500  correspondents in 5 states over a period of 3 years,” she said.

Some of  the participants in their feedbacks appreciated NITDA and the NUJ-FCT Council for the opportunity, adding that the knowledge will better assist their work

Chizoba Ogbeche, a journalist, said that the training exposed her to the rudiments of digital technology, especially the lesson taught on Artificial Intelligence.

At the end of the training, all participants were given laptops in line with NITDA’s policy of equipping its trainees.