Russia trains young African journalists on professionalism

The Russian News Agency, Sputnik, has trained 15 journalists from some African countries, including Nigeria, on media skills towards promoting professionalism.

The training, which is part of Sputnik’s Pro Educational Project for young journalists, is expected to prepared the African continent in the plan by Sputnik to establish a new operation hub in Africa and to strengthen cooperation with the continent.

The training holding in Moscow from October 18 to October 21, is aimed at creating a platform for journalists to share their experiences and challenges as well as discuss ways to overcome them.

Sputnik’s Director of International Cooperation, Vasily Pushkov, had remarked that journalists and media operations world-wide face similar problems, thus, Sputnik created a common platform where such problems could be discussed.

Pushkov disclosed that over 90 journalists from many countries have benefitted from the Sputnik Pro News Generation Programme for young journalists, adding that the training is helping to make them better professionals.

“Our project, Sputnik Pro, is a programme that we launched many years ago specifically for young journalists and foreign students looking to become journalists.

Pushkov stated: “The idea is that the problem that the journalist in Russia is facing is completely the same for each and every country in the world; for each and every journalist in the world.

“So, the idea was – why not establish a system of mutual experience exchange, discussion platform for journalists from different countries – to create a united front towards solving those problems.

“So far, we have had participants from 90 countries over the years.”

Pushkov stated: the training would be a mutually beneficial 21^st century kind of cooperation as Russia “looks to strengthen cooperation with Africa across various sectors.

“It will be mutually beneficial because that is the only way such cooperation can work in this 21^st century.

“Right now, we are in talks with our colleagues in Ethiopia about creating our new editorial office in Addis Ababa which basically will be our new central operations (area) for the region.

“We will be employing correspondents in order to, first of all, bring more news about the continent, about the region for our Russian audience as well as our world-wide audience.

“This is the start of relaunching the programme after two years because of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic.

“We had a dedicated Sputnik programme for Africa before the COVID-19 pandemic.”