NUJ trains 140 Bauchi journalists in the past year, says Chairman

The Bauchi council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) has trained 140 journalists in the state in global best journalism practices in the past year, the state chairman of the council, Mr. Umar Sa’id stated on Tuesday.

In an interview in Bauchi, Sa’id said various training was conducted on peace, cybercrime, security, and disaster reporting for both broadcast and print media practitioners in the state.

He added that the journalists were also trained on reporting gender and sexual-based violence.

“Within one year in office, we were able to train 140 out of the 350 journalists in the state, who had participated in one training or the other. We also saw the need to train a reasonable number of casual staff from various state-owned media organizations.

“Aside from reporting general security issues, journalists learned personal safety techniques because our personal safety is paramount in discharging our duties,” he said.

Sa’id stated that some of the training was organized in collaboration with the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and the U.S Embassy, emphasizing that training and re-training of journalists were vibrant tools for human development, especially in a multi-sectoral society.

He said that as agenda setters, journalists in the state would continue to project developmental issues that impact the lives of the general public, urging journalists to also focus on human-angle stories, as the voice of the voiceless.