Fifteen journalists and other professionals have been trained in Mobile Journalism by Media Mentors Network.
The two weeks programme had five days of online sessions and three days physical training held in Minna, Niger state.
The training sessions included basics of Mobile journalism, tools for Mobile journalism, photo editing, text animation and video editing.
The participants were taken through new techniques in mobile journalism, especially how to make reports and content more engaging and interactive.
The Creative Director, Media Mentors Network, Justina Asishana said that the training, which was paid for by the participants was meant to improve their digital skills following demand from colleagues and friends who had viewed her digital content.
“Several people have been asking me how I make my videos or give life to my pictures. With my type of job, I cannot teach everyone one after the other. That is why I decided to hold this training. I held the online session for those who were outside Minna and would not be able to participate physically. We held the online session for five days, one hour every day although there were days we exceeded one hour because of the practical aspect and the physical session was held for three days.
“People complained that it was paid training, but for online training you need data and for physical training, you will need some logistics. I also did not want just anybody coming to the training just for the sake of attending. I wanted those who really want the skill to attend and I got them,” Ashishana explained.
She said that the sessions were intensive and mostly practical. ” Everyone had to download the tools and we practised the apps together. The participants, especially those who attended the physical sessions were excited to practice these tools and had already produced some content before the end of the programme.”
Recounting some of the challenges experienced especially during the training, Asishana explained that most of the challenges were experienced during the online session.
“I used my phone for the sessions and had to share my screen for most of the days. So the challenges came in calls interrupting the sessions, poor network and inability to record the sessions as I used my personal Google Meet. But we were able to scale through these challenges.”
Asishana urged journalists to learn basic mobile journalism/digital skills as it comes in handy in the course of doing their jobs and gives them alternative means of income.
One of the online Participants, Abdulafeez Olaitan said that the training established a crucial aspect of digital journalism and the power of smartphone gadgets in relation to mobile journalism. “I really learnt new concepts on the creation of multimedia content and how to manipulate them to my taste,” he said.
He observed some intermittent pauses during the online sessions which he said could be improved upon for subsequent training.
Another participant who attended the physical training, Mrs Saadatu Alhassan wanted more time to have been spent on video editing adding that the training was an eye-opener.
“The training was an eye opener which gave room to a lot of discovery in the IT world. It shows that anything is possible using when we explore the world of technology. However, I wished we had more time to spend on Video editing.
