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Wednesday, 25 June 2014

Functional Social Networking for Nigerian journalists, Abuja – LIVE UPDATES


The United Bank for Africa, Everything Journalism, and The Journalism Clinic are hosting the Abuja edition of its one-day social media summit for journalists — ‘Functional Social Networking for Nigerian journalists’.

The summit aims at boosting the capacity of Nigerian journalists to maximize the use of social media for news gathering, building online communities, and engaging with their audiences.

A team of speakers – media professionals and scholars -will attempt to answer four questions during the summit: Does One Platform Suit All? What Does It Profit Us? What Can You Teach Me About Social Media? And Ethics: Why It Matters in Social Networking?
 
We are serving you live updates as the event unfolds.

Liveblog


13.03

The Nation Newspaper Online Strategy

Mr. Otufodurin said the content going to website is different from the one going to the print content.
He said the online Editor is in charge of Headlines, Captions, comments, photographs, facebook, twitter etc.

He said Any Senior Editorial staff that is computer literate and digital savvy can be online editor. He however said only interested not frustrated Senior staff should be posted.

He said not many senior level or even middle level traditional journalists fit this role. Online Editors must think Global and write as such on their stories.

He also said Online Editors should be Online friendly. He said stories should be edited to catch the attention of the average reader.

Headlines, he said should also tell the story because not many people eventually read the full story."Apply inverted pyramid style as much as possible" he said.

He also said online Editors should be as brief as possible and vary content presentations.
He said beyond breaking news related content should be generated. Online Editors must think outside the box for story ideas, he said.

He advised that links specially related to stories should be included in stories and Hashtags of trending topics should also be followed diligently.

He said online editing is about speed and accuracy." When in doubt, check out and hold on until you are sure" he said.

He said Online Editor is not a one man department and must be adequately staffed.
12.49
Online Editing: Tips, Tools and Take-Aways By Lekan Otufodurin, Managing Editor, Online, The Nation Mr. Otufodurin advised Journalists in Nigeria to overlook the prevailing challenges they face and make progress. He also advised Journalists to be functionally active in the Social Media because it is also a channel for professional progress. "If you apply for a fellowship today, they will ask for your Social Media Accounts, if you don't have, they will not consider you," he said. He said an online editor is in charge of editing the web line content of a typical media organization. "we are in age now in which the competition is not between The Punch and Vanguard but with medium such as Premium Times, the Cable and SharaReporters,"He said.
 
12.44
Many participants complained about the quality of Internet service in Nigeria as an inhibition to Journalism.

Tony Ochogbo, the Director Public Affairs at NCC, responded as at April this year, Nigeria had 129.3 million active lines, 63 on the internet, number 10 in the world and 1 in Africa.

He said progress has been made and that telecom is an ecosystem that has power as a critical factor. He said spectrum level cannot be expected to operate at 100% when power is not always available.
He said most of the products highlighted by UBA this morning would not have been possible just three years ago.

He said all ATM's that people go to withdraw money from use telephone lines and all the bill payments made from the comfort of people's houses is as a result of progress made in the telecom industry.

He said no service provider got the approval to set up a base station in Abuja in the last two years.
He said the NCC has recently advertised for Infrastructure companies to come on stream to provide the necessary infrastructure for telecom companies.
 
12.30

Crowdsourcing: What an Investigative Journalist can do with it by Yemi Adamolekun, Executive Director, Enough Is Enough.

Ms. Adamolekun began by giving EIE's experience in crowd-sourcing-The 2011 Social Media tracking Center and Citizens solutions to end terrorism. She said there no news platform in Nigeria that actively engage audience in Nigeria like the social media. She said in the 2011 post election violence was picked up by the Social Media before any traditional one. She said 164,349 SM contents were tracked in 2011 elections. On ending terrorism she said over a 1000 tweets calling for an end to terrorism were sent in two days after girls were abducted in Chibok.
 
12.10
A presentation on Banking on the Internet – THE UBA STORY - followed Dr. Anderson's. The presenter said e-banking is just about digital banking he said the era of persons needing to go to the bank branch to carry out simple transactions is fading. "You can sit in your seating room to do your banking." He also said any customer using internet banking enjoys a lot of benefit, including security,(not having to ferry cash around), bill payments and comfort. He said the UBA has developed a mobile banking platform that any customer can carry out all basic transactions with their phones. He said anyone not using mobile banking is losing a lot.
 
11.36
Earlier, when the chairman of the event, Richard Ikiebe, gave a short remark Richard Ikiebe
11.35
The next speaker is a Medical Doctor, Anderson Uvie-Emegbo. He will speak on SOCIAL MEDIA: 10 QUESTIONS THE TRAVEL INDUSTRY MUST ANSWER. Dr. Anderson is a leading Pan African Digital Management Consultant, International Faculty, Strathmore Business School, Kenya and Adjunct Faculty, School of Media and Communication, Pan-Atlantic University. He tweets @andyemegbo and his personal website is www.andyemegbo.com He said his presentation will dwell on travel because travel and Social Media has a strong relationship. He said all the negativity being expressed about the Social Media actually happens offline and is only relayed on the platform. Dr. Anderson is now playing three short videos for participants.
11.27

A Participant, Ijeoma, observed that Mr. Awofesu failed to highlight the negative impacts of Social Media such as the relay of wrong information leading to negative consequences. Another participant from NCC, Tony Ajegbo, also said many people using Social Media are often not knowledgeable about the topics they discuss on the platforms. He said Bloggers have a responsibility to properly educate their followers. "It is time to look at depth, knowledge and capacity and not just to blog" he said. A female participant said she is attending the event so as to be counseled on how to embrace SM and also find the time for it. Kingsley another participant said there is a form of campaign between those who take advantage of the SM for information dissemination and the average Journalist. Mr. Awofesu, responding to some of the questions, said part of the problem has to do with the way they Youth, for instance, appreciate Social Media as compared to the elite. "What the youth go for in the Social Media is ridiculous." He said most serious issues hardly excite the average youth but "post something trashy and see how it goes viral." "If you understand what your readership wants, you have a responsibility to give it to them, I am not saying that is ideal" he said. He advised the lady without time for SM to just pick on the most relevant platform and give it few hours a day. Garba Shehu, a social commentator, argued that mainstream media has Social Responsibility to maintain a certain moral standard. "The Social Media strongly encourages half naked women but we don't allow that" he said. "Chairman of the occasion said mainstream media should know that the audience have moved and they either need to move with them or remain irrelevant.
11.19
A presentation by Pelu Awofeso on Social Media 101 followed Mr. Adeniyi's. Mr. Awofeso Pelu Awofeso, Travel journalist, is currently promoting @TravelNextDoor (www.travelnextdoor.com), a domestic tourism project exclusively driven by social-media. He said Social Media is on a Bullet Train - that journalists need to catch up with - and the world is on Information Over drive. He argued that stories have longer life spans and effective feedback online than in Print. He described Social Media as a good place to hang out with a billion of the 6 billion people in the world - 900 million persons on facebook, 200m on twitter and 155m on Linkedln. In his vieww, Social Media is about Building a Community and sharing and bonding with it. He said the primary aim of every SM user is to build a community to promote certain goals and ideals, he said. "Time is gone where people hoard information" he said. He said if people are not sharing your stories, it is like you are not writing. Most importantly he said Social Media is about Customer Service where corporate bodies respond to their customers effectively to raise their profile. He said if Journalists continue to shy away from the Social Media, they can be pushed away by street Journalists.
11.11
At the end of his presentation, a participant asked Mr. Adeniyi his view on the regulation of the Social Media in Nigeria. "Even in China who are trying desperately to do that it is not working, so i don't subscribe to what they are trying to do here," he responded.
10.40
Former spokesperson of President Umaru Yar'adua, Segun Adeniyi and Chairman of the Editorial Board of Thisday presented the first paper titled "I am A social Media Alien." Adeniyi has never been in any Social Media Platform. He said he is already too busy reading and replying emails and does not need to add to his trouble. He also said he saw no reason on engaging people he does not even know. "Every morning my firsts job is to delete all these junk mails," he said. He said many persons take advantage of social media to abuse each other and display their private lives. He said misses nothing by being out of the Social Media. "Once I write my column, i don't look back and don't read whatever comments followed." There are also millions of other people like me, some of them, celebrities are not in the Social Media. Mr. Adeniyi listed some celebrities who abhor the Social Media because it is an invasion on their privacy. "As Bradd Knows I barely even know how to turn on the Computer" -Adeniyi quoting Angelina Jolie's lack of media tech knowledge.
10.28
Chairman of the event, Richard Ikiebe of Pan African University in Lagos, addressed the summit shortly after the UBA representative. He said his university is working with Google to train Nigerian Journalists on Social Media for a possible period of three months. He also argued that online piracy can be reduced if it is challenged.
10.23
Representative of UBA CEO making a brief remark said Lagos event was a success and hoped Abuja will be same. He said UBA is involved in the programme because they traditional support the Media and also stated that the bank is one of the few to appreciate online media at its early stage. He said UBA is also one of the very first Banks to embrace Social Media and they are ranked among the top three in the use of Social Media today. "Our social media strategy aims at engaging us with our customers" he said. "Digital is the future of the media." He said forums such as this is important to curb the rise of 'online pirates'. According to Nigerian Communication Commission, 66 million Nigerians use the internet.
10.04
Guests and participants are trickling in. Already in the House are Olusegun Adeniyi, Chido Onumah, Garba Shehu, Yushau Shuaib, Taiwo Obe and several Journalists

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