By Khoze Clement & Chidinma Akawor
“Understanding the British works better and the British knowing the needs of Nigerian media was the focus of the workshop” said the British Council Director Operations, Mr. Stephen Forbes in his opening statement as he laid down differences between the British High Commission and the British Council at the Capacity Building Workshop for Media 2.0 in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
The British Council is the United Kingdom’s International organization for cultural relations and educational opportunities.
It operates in 110 countries including Nigeria.
During a Day 1 session of the two-day event, the atmosphere took another dimension as Mr. Lanre Philips of Elpee Consulting emphasized on storytelling in contemporary Nigeria.
“It requires sharpening of the sword consistently because the world is revolving and rotating, continuous learning is essential for journalists”.
With the use of short video clips and personal experiences he brought to light how journalists could use storytelling to stir up emotions of their various audience.
In closing, he said the essence of the workshop was not to lecture the audience on journalism but for journalists to repackage their reportage and he urged the participants to appreciate the British Council’s continuous efforts in organizing workshop in Lagos, Abuja and now in Portharcourt.
Abasiama Idaresit CEO/MD of Wildfusion did nothing less than the previous facilitator on his topic Online Content Optimization for Journalists.
“Journalists should use descriptive, concise and accurate headlines which summarizes the content of web pages using targeted key words to draw attention and let searchers know exactly whether the given pages contains the information they are looking for”,
Buttressing his point, he added that referencing, categorizing and hash tag further strengthen contents for the purpose of discovery and visibility.
