Blessing Oladunjoye, publisher of BONews https://bonewsng.com/, a website devoted to reporting women, persons with disabilities and children is Journalist, Development Enthusiast and Radio Host. In this interview with Lekan Otufodunrin, she shares her experience of being an online publisher and other issues involved in online publishing.
What informed your recent call for volunteers for your website and what is the outcome of the response?
We realised there is a need for expansion, cover more grounds and because there are limited resources, we can’t recruit many full-time staff. So there was a need to get volunteers on board to join the team. The outcome was overwhelming! We had 15 applications in less than one week. You might think that what’s overwhelming about 15 applicants, but to me, I see this as a positive sign.
Despite the size of the organization, people still showed an interest in volunteering. All the applicants had rich CVs and at some point, I was wondering if we were recruiting. I had to inform the applicants that there is no payment, with the intention of having a reduced number to help us make the selection, but they were all interested even when we mentioned there won’t be a payment.
At this point, I was confused and wondered what could be done, because the intention was to have three volunteers join the other staff. So, we organized a one-day training which was facilitated by Media Career Development Services, pro bono and a media colleague, to bring the new volunteers up to speed about BONews Service and what is expected of them. At the end of the day, after the training we organised, we picked two people who showed more commitment. They have begun working and are doing well.
What should readers of your website be looking forward to with more hands-on board?
Our readers should expect more original, and rich content. With fewer hands, we have been trying to ensure that we give our readers good and original content.
Now that we have two more hands on board, we will be churning out more content that is rich in development issues and original to us.
We will also do more reports in line with on our core areas; Women, Persons with Disabilities and Children.
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Like in the traditional media, we also don’t have many women running their own media organization online, what has been your experience being a publisher of a general interest website?
Honestly, I find it difficult to identify myself as a publisher at the initial stage, because I have a few other things I do. I find it easier to associate myself with those notable organizations and platforms, but when I realised that I am not doing myself or the organisation any favour, I decided to talk about it to people.
Apart from that, it’s been quite challenging trying to gain relevance when you have hundreds of websites all around and all doing well.
I thought about that and I decided that we need to create a niche for ourselves, pick an area to focus on and be known for.
This has been helping because to some extent, we are known among the ‘communities’ that we focus on, though we hope to gain more relevance. Also, I’ve been learning on the job, because being a publisher is not just about putting the stories out there, but also generating funds and ensuring smooth operations.
What informed your decision to launch your own website?
BONews Service started in 2013, during my journalism education training. My Online Journalism lecturer, Dr. Quasim Akinreti, now the current Chairman of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, Lagos, told us to open a blog and publish stories on it. That was like our major assignment then. I opened http://bocommunitynews.blogspot.com/ it’s still online. I used it as a channel to publish my write-ups about urban-poor communities in Lagos.
Much later, I migrated to wordpress https://bonewsservice.wordpress.com/ this is still very active till date. After a while, a senior colleague, Mayowa Adeniran checked the performance of the wordpress blog on Alexa and he was shocked to see that it was rated. With this, he advised that I proceed to get a domain name and register it properly, which I did. The current address is https://bonewsng.com Since then, the organisation has been growing. We are more focused and just recently we got a grant from Urgent Action Fund – Africa to promote our work.
What is your advice for aspiring women publishers?
We know that space is largely occupied by men, but aspiring women publishers should not be intimidated by this. There are women in the media industry making an impact. Thus, aspiring women publisher should look up to them and aspire to achieve more.
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How well will you say you have achieved your original goals and objectives?
It’s been a work in progress. The main reason for setting up the platform as I mentioned earlier, was just for school assignments and much later to have a platform where I can publish my articles and write-ups without censorship or queries as applicable in the mainstream media. However, as a standard news platform, the goals and objectives which evolved around reporting the underreported issues are being met and we are progressing on this on a daily basis.
As I mentioned earlier, we now get invited for programmes and events and we were also a beneficiary of a grant where we had to train women with disabilities across the country. We have also been beneficiaries of different support from Code for Africa to help with our reports and productions. BONews Service is also media partner to Partnership to Engage, Reform and Learn, PERL a DFID funded project. Though it’s not coming as fast as we expect, we are moving. The site is improving and we are becoming more visible.
What is your view of the coverage of women in the media online and what can be done to enhance it?
So many researches have revealed that there is low coverage of women in the media and I think the consciousness has been drawn and efforts are being made to address this. What can be done is to be deliberate and conscious about reporting women. Like our approach at BONews Service, we try to view all issues from the gender and disability-inclusion perspective, as such, one will realize that women issues are cross-cutting and you can’t be boxed to a corner when you give them adequate coverage.
What are your future plans for your website?
Our plan and the set goal is to be widely known beyond Nigeria as a platform dedicated to developmental news and gender.
We hope to achieve this by constantly doing reports that focus on human development as well as national development. Our hopes are very high that if we continue at this pace, in a couple of years to come, we will be well known for what we do; reporting about women, persons with disabilities and children.
What major challenges are online publishers experiencing in the country and what kind of support do they need?
One of the major challenges online publishers are facing is being able to sustain themselves and keep the platform going. Finance is a key factor to being a publisher. Once that is not there, the future of the platform is not certain. I once managed a website for a particular person,who is not a journalist, and in three months, he wants the website to be like Sahara Reporters and I told him it doesn’t work like that because of more resources; financial and human need to be available. He is not financially buoyant and the website is now dormant.
Another challenge is sustainability and getting original content. This is somehow peculiar to new platforms as they have to compete with existing and strong media organisations to get the news first.
What is your advice for young journalists on getting jobs in the media?
Well, it is all about passion and working hard to get what you desire.
While we encourage young journalists to pursue their dreams, there is a learning process where you develop and build yourself.
During this leaning process, they have to work under people. That is where the job getting comes in. But it is not untrue that the available jobs are fewer.
I will advise that young journalists volunteer and work pro bono because the space is quite competitive and while volunteering, you get to let people see what you’re capable of and if there is an opening, you would be selected first.
I was at Osun State Broadcasting Corporation for over a year without payment apart from some few senior colleagues that would support with lunch or transport fee sometimes. I was also at Radio Continental, now MAX FM for almost a year without any pay. I am grateful for the support by Mr. Charles kalu, Citizen Jones and other editors in the newsroom. All of these experiences put together were what helped me when I got a full-time job at Women Radio.
Even though I was not employed at the places I interned, the experiences were mine and I don’t have to indicate on my CV that I was not earning any income there. As it is if we need to recruit any full-time staff at BONews Service today, who will I consider first? My volunteers. So, people should learn to be able to ‘sell’ and ‘market’ themselves by volunteering.
Any other issue you will like to talk about?
I will like to announce that we’re open to partnership. What I have observed in the industry, in line with the shrinking media space and the clampdown on journalists, when media organisations unite and collaborate, it would be hard for the government and corrupt individuals to sway the mind of the people.
The media is a very powerful tool, which should be at the forefront of upholding democracy in the country and this we are committed to by partnering with other platforms.
People can share their content for publication and we are open to collaboration as well. This we have been doing and we hope to do more.