Veteran communicator and marketing executive who is now Correspondent of Bloomberg on Nigeria’s Cocoa industry, Tolani Awere at the Communication Masterclass by University of Lagos Mass Communication Alumni Association (UMCAA) spoke of how to prepare for a career in specialised reporting.
I am glad and grateful for the opportunity given to me by the Dean of Masterclass to share my experience with you all, and I hope I may be able to inspire one or more of you to explore specialised reporting as a career.
I enjoin you to please pay particular attention to the trajectory of my career, particularly from Cadbury to Cocoa Industries Limited and my final berthing at Multi-Trex Integrated Foods Plc, the largest cocoa processing factory in Nigeria, until my retirement from active Marketing service in 2008.
Very noticeable here is a thread running through them – involvement with players in Nigeria’s cocoa industry’s value chain.
This became my fortress when I was engaged, by Bloomberg of New York in 2014, as its Correspondent on Nigeria’s cocoa industry.
Reporting specialised business beat, as I do now for Bloomberg as a stringer, relies on one’s academic background and experiential scope.
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Academic in the sense that all the ‘Who’, ‘What’, ‘Where’, ‘When’ ‘Why’, and ‘How’s, plus interview techniques and drafting of interview questionnaires that we learnt in college play significant roles in one’s reportage.
Working at various times as a Correspondent features writer with a newspaper, radio and TV stations and editor specialised publications with Central Bank of Nigeria provided me with valuable experience and preparation for my subsequent engagement with Bloomberg news service.
As a matter of deliberate policy, Bloomberg encourages its stringers to take comments from reliable and dependable sources on phone or by email or press releases.
How to render them as news pieces that will be appropriate for one’s readers is key in order to command readership.
Bloomberg is a global wire service that investors, finance houses and international players in the global cocoa industry rely upon for accurate news and correct data which over the years have placed it second only to DowJones in the world.
Therefore understanding one’s readers and audiences will play a significant role in the way one delivers his story. Not only in prose but sometimes with statistics and graphs.
Experiential is hinged on one’s scope of connections and how reliable and believable their views are.
While even still in paid employment, the need to identify one’s area of speciality becomes a priority so as to begin to build a library of contacts, their phones, emails and other details.
As for me, I spent a very significant part of my working career in the cocoa industry, working and relating with all players along its value chain – cocoa farmers, quality assurance agencies, traders, cocoa research institutions, processors and exporters, export promoting and facilitating agencies, shipping companies, freight forwarders etc.
This came in handy in my new assignment as a Correspondent for Bloomberg: I knew the terrain, the major players and the value chain. That helps tremendously in reading the trends, knowing what questions to ask and who to ask.
I encourage Mass Communication graduates to explore specialised reporting as a career as there will always be the need for specialised reporters in practically every field because players in those fields need up-to-date information and analyses to make informed decisions.
About Awere
Veteran Tolani Awere was born in Ijebu Ode, in Ogun State, where he attended Adeola Odutola College and Ijebu Ode Grammar School for his Ordinary Level and Advanced Level education respectively.
In 1974, he graduated from the University of Lagos Mass Communication Department where he was taught by Australians Lou Aspinall and Miss Riley of UNESCO and Profs Frank Ugboajah and Onuora Nwunelli.
He completed his NYSC in the old Benue-Plateau State where he worked variously with Nigeria Standard Newspaper, Plateau State Television and Radio Nigeria, Jos.
After the NYSC he became an Information Officer with the Federal Ministry of Information before becoming Publication Officer with the Central Bank of Nigeria. There he edited CBN’s quarterly Economic and Financial Review and CBN Annual Report.
After obtaining a diploma in Communication Advertising and Marketing he veered into marketing by joining battery manufacturers Berec Nigeria Limited, as a Management Trainee.
From there he moved to Cadbury as Product Manager before joining Cocoa Industries Limited as Marketing Manager Vitalo, and then on to Multitrex Integrated Foods Plc, Nigeria’s biggest cocoa processing company, from where he retired as Executive Director.
His exposure in the cocoa industry led to his engagement as Correspondent on Nigeria’s cocoa industry by Bloomberg of New York, a news agency.
