The President, Centre for Values and Leadership, Professor Pat Utomi has emphasized the need for continuous education as a critical factor for the development of journalism profession in the country.
Utomi spoke at the inaugural lecture of the newly established Centre for Financial Journalism in Lagos.
“If journalists can be trained and be retrained on to their jobs to the best taste, what that means is that the society will be well informed and when a society well is informed, decision making will be great when implementing great policies that enhance the country”
Utomi who was once a business columnist with the defunct Business Concord said his concern for business journalism is beyond ordinary level as he has been involved in training journalists at different fora.
“In 1994, the World Bank representative in Nigeria at that called me on the state of bad business news writing and analysis in our national newspaper. He was not happy, so I suggested to him that we should organise a training for business journalists to train them on effective business writing.
“He agreed and we used Gateway Hotel in Ota as the venue. Few months later, he called me to thank me on the training because he has seen some improvements in their stories. But few months later, he called me to lament the falling standard again, and he was shocked with what I told him that among the journalists that we trained, it is was only two of them that are still in journalism, the others have gone to banking sector, he marveled”
He expressed hope that the new centre will help to address the level of decadence and skill gap in financial journalism in Nigeria
