Jennifer Ehidiamen, a passionate Poet, Tech savvy Journalist, Social Entrepreneur and an active global citizen committed to working for a positive change was a guest speaker at the January 2013 fellowship of Journalists for Christ in Lagos, Nigeria.
According to her, to advance media career in 2013 is all about moving from point A to point B or Point A to point C. To move from where we are, we must keep these three things in mind:
1. Trainings and Fellowship
In my final year thesis that was focused on The Factors the Influences Journalist’s Productivity, one of the findings in the research was journalist’s interest in embracing training opportunities. However, most journalists who were surveyed in the Vanguard and the Nation admitted that most of the trainings they have been to are mostly self-sponsored. The management rarely provide training opportunities that can advance their career. However, as journalists we must not limit ourselves to the limited training opportunities provided by our organizations. If we really want to move ahead in our media career then we must be ready to maximize every training opportunities available. Popular online resource where we can find training and fellowship opportunities include: www.ijnet.org; www.internationalreporting.org etc.
2. Embrace the New Media
The new media is changing the face of journalism. But how many of us here are maximizing the tools to advance our media career? A lot of people I know who are active on social media and very proactive in reproducing news contents from the news professional journalists publish have no prior training in journalism. Yet, they are the ones making the best of the new media tools. What are professional journalists doing? There are different tools we must be willing to embrace in order to become more visible online. Some of the tools I use most are: Twitter, FaceBook, GooglePlus, Blog, LinkedIn etc. Each of these tools have a strong way of helping us have a more impactful online presence. We must not settle for just creating news contents for our traditional media alone. We each can own a website or create a free account on Blogger or WordPress and use them as channels to amplify our voices on issues we are passionate about. The more people know that you are actually a journalist and not just another blogger, the more they are likely to visit your blog for original and accurate reports you publish. We can use the new media to engage others, network, collaborate and advance our career.
3. Profile: Tell your story right
Journalists are very good story tellers. We do a very good job telling the stories of others but not our story. The other day my former classmate was having a challenge with filling a space in an application that required her to tell her story. The space required over 700 words. But all she had was some 390 words or so. I was perplexed after I read through the profile. “You are more than this,” I said to her. I could not figure our if she was trying to be modest or she was just too timid to tell her story. As journalist we need to have an audacious voice in sharing our experiences with others. Our profile should speak for us. How is your current LinkedIn page, is it up to date? Is the picture you used on point? People are interested in learning about where we have been and why we do what we do. Without an up to date profile that accurately tell of our work, they cannot learn this. Don’t get me wrong, this is not same as blowing out own trumpet. I think we are each shortchanging ourselves from possible opportunities that might come knocking if there is nothing about our story that draws those opportunities on.
These three points have not exhausted how we can advance our career this year. But like uncle Lekan said at the beginning of his presentation, it is important for us to do a reflective thinking that will help us figure out where we are at the moment, where we want to get to and how we can get there, i.e. the things we need to do. And by God’s grace, we’ll get there.
Jennifer Ehidiamen
2013 IRP New Media Fellow
Reporting on issues of global health and development in Nigeria as one of the six New Media Fellows for 2013 to the International Reporting Project (IRP) at Johns Hopkins University SAIS
I love to keep myself excited, challenged, productive, learn new things and grow through life. For I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
Poet. Tech savvy Journalist. Social Entrepreneur.
Jen’s Mobile: +234(0)8072649833
Twitter: @disgeneration
www.twitter.com/disgeneration
Blog: www.youthmakingchange.blogspot
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