Media trainer and multimedia storyteller, Chima Nwankwo offers tips on how to comprehensively cover project commissioning, especially when in doubt about facts provided on the project.
You are a journalist.
You get an invitation to cover a Press Conference on the Commissioning of a project.
It sounds like an old project and you have a feeling it’s been commissioned before.
What do you do?
BEFORE you go to cover a press briefing you need to decide the exact outcome you want to achieve with your story.
Do you simply want to do a chronological report of events or do you want to uncover hitherto unknown facts and get the government to complete the project?
If the former is your choice, you may proceed to the briefing without a care in the world. But if you choose the latter, you need to do a bit of preparation.
For instance, if you get an invitation to cover the commissioning of a road/ building project, you need to ask some questions.
1. Do your research
Get the original contract documents of the project. You can do this by doing some networking. Use Google. Read up on the contract. Talk to other journalists who cover the works beat. Or talk to the Chief Press Secretary of the ministry that awarded the contract.
Tip- Please do not at the time you ask for the contract papers, let the CPS know that you want to do a story on the contract.
This will let you know who commissioned the building initially and signed on behalf of the government.
If the documents show that the project ought to have been completed in 12 months but it is now 5 years, it leads you to the next set of questions.
2. Ask Questions
At the press briefing, ask the person commissioning the project when it will be completed. Also, ask them why it hasn’t been completed and is being re-awarded. S/he will probably say that he wasn’t in office 5 years ago.
As a journalist, it is your job to find out who was in office when the contract was initially awarded and interview them. Ask them why the contract wasn’t completed under their watch. They will probably tell you that money was approved/released but the former contractor didn’t do the job.
Get the number of the contractor. Fix an appointment, interview them and they may tell you that though money was approved, it was not completely released to them and that is why the work stopped. Now you are beginning to get a clearer picture of what exactly happened.
But your work is not yet done. Go to the road/ building site and talk to the locals who live around the construction site. Ask them to give you a history of the building as they know it. This is when the true story will start pouring out.
You have now gotten 4 different accounts of the same story. By now you should have a fair idea of what has REALLY happened so far. This version of your story is almost complete. I say this version because in journalism, a story never really ends. As new facts emerge, a dead story may rise to fresh relevance or prominence.
For instance, a different political party might win the next elections and you may discover that the govt officials and contractors who you interviewed all lied to you because they belonged to one political party.
So basically, always make sure you do a balance.
Get the pros.
Get the cons.
Ask questions.
Don’t get tired.
Strike a balance.
And the truth in any situation will slowly begin to emerge.
Caveat: The above formula doesn’t always work as some stories such as
‘the failure of the Ajaokuta Steel Complex’ are COMPLEX and will require much more digging to get near a factual, objective account of events.
