Stallion Times Train 40 Journalists on Multimedia in Kogi

A total of 40 Journalists in Kogi State have participated in multimedia newsroom training.  

The workshop which was held on Thursday in Lokoja by Stallion Times Media Service LTD., the publisher of Stallion Times newspaper.

Stallion Times Media Services Ltd. has so far trained working journalists both in Kogi and Kano states, under the Collaborative Media Project (Collaborating for media independence and government accountability), funded by the MacArthur Foundation.

In his opening remarks, The Coordinator of Stallion Times, Isiyaku Ahmed, said that 40 participants were selected from different media platforms in Kogi State to broaden their knowledge of multimedia newsroom journalism.

He said: “ Reporters and editors needed to be empowered and with the necessary skills that would make them tell stories in social spaces, which now accommodate a large audience.

“We at Stallion Times recognize the importance of embracing and using new technologies and platforms to effectively convey stories that resonate with the audience in the digital age.

“This workshop, therefore, is designed to introduce the concept of multimedia newsroom storytelling that caters to all sorts of audiences and platforms. 

“It will help journalists appreciate the use of technology to deliver investigative reports in a blend of text, static images, animation, video, and audio clips.”

Ahmed urged the participants to practice the knowledge and experience gained and step down the training in their media organizations.  

The resource person, Stephen Salawu took journalists through the ‘concept and effective use of multimedia’ and essential skills and tools for multimedia journalism.

Stephen Enoch, a Stallion Times Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, Stephen Enoch took participating journalists through practicals on how to use some editing tools, among them were Canva, Lumen 5, and Adobe Premiere Pro.

Some of the participants were, mike Abu of Nigeria Post, Yekini Jimoh of Kogi Flame, Obansa Ibrahim of Enduring News and Abubakar Sule of Nigerian Trend online Newspaper, amongst other editors.

In an interview shortly after the event, Grace Ben Kato, Deputy News Editor of ‘The Graphics Newspaper’ expressed that the training has broadened her experience in the use of multimedia.

“I have learned a lot about how to use different tools of multimedia to tell compelling stories.

“As a participant in this training, it will help to improve my journalistic skills,” Kato added.

Another participant, Aliyu Muhammed Lawal, Managing Editor, Core News, said: “This training has been very insightful because the media is a vast world with different updates.

“Attending this training today has made me learn different ways of editing videos with myriads of application tools to tell stories in a succinct way.

“As the Managing Editor of my online newspaper, I will step down this training to my reporters to boost the creativity of my news outlet.”

Ishak Dan-Iman, a Senior Correspondent with Voice of Nigeria (VON) said the training session has exposed him to existing technological editing software.  

He said: “I am equally impressed with the practical demonstrations on the use of Canva to create multimedia content in line with the dynamics of journalism.”