Experts seek effective media report of govt agencies

Naijamedialog February 23, 2021

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By Babajide Komolafe

ECONOMY

Communication experts have advocated effective media coverage of strategic agencies and parastatals of the federal government.

Such strategic government agencies include the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Pensions Commission (PenCom) and the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), among others.

The experts spoke at a seminar organised by The Whistler Newspapers in Lagos, with the theme: “COVID-19 and the Journalists: Effective Reporting of the NNPC, PenCom and NSIA”.

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They urged journalists to up their game by adopting modern technological tools to make their job easier and more efficient.

They were also encouraged to put more effort in always probing critical aspects of the operations and mandates of the agencies to keep Nigerians well informed and help entrench transparency and accountability in the establishments.

In his presentation, the Senior Lecturer, Mass Communication Department, University of Lagos, Dr Tayo Popoola, urged business journalists to engage in thorough research of the agencies and adopt modern technological tools to help them to effectively report the agencies in this pandemic time.

He said journalists could get information on the activities of the agencies from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and could as well explore the opportunity provided by the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act to demand information from the agencies.

On his part, a former Bloomberg Correspondent, Mr. Vincent Nwanma, advised journalists to always probe into what the agencies are doing and how their operations are impacting on the lives of average Nigerians as spelt out in their mandates.

Nwanma said that Nigerians look up to business journalists to probe the government on their behalf on how the nation’s economy is being run and how policies and programme of government really affect their lives.

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