Versatile journalist and publisher of csomedia.com.ng, Emmanuel Udom reviews The Journalist You Ought To Be by Media Career Development Specialist, Lekan Otufodunrin
The Journalist You Ought to Be
Author: Lekan Otufodunrin
No of Pages: 182
No of chapters: 40
Price: N,2000
Reviewer: Emmanuel Udom
The Journalist You Ought To Be, a 182-page book for professional journalists, young and old, written by Lekan Otufodunrin, journalist, media career development expert and managing editor of www.mediacareerng.org, is a masterpiece.
Distilled into 40 chapters, the book with a foreword written by Femi Adesina, senior special adviser, media/publicity to President Mohammed Buhari, is loaded with step-by-step principles and opportunities in media career development.
Call it a how-to-do-it, road-map-to-the-practice-of-journalism book and you will not be wrong. Honestly, this is exactly what it is.
Otufodunrin, president, Journalists for Christ, with over 35 years of active journalism practice experience who is now Executive Director of Media Career Development Network (www.mediacareerng.org) did not write this book as an armchair journalist.
As Adesina wrote, the born-again, gentle-looking journalist, wrote real-time and based on hands-on experiential participation.
Truth is that Otufodunrin is a tried, tested and experienced journalist, who is grounded on the nitty-gritty of the journalism profession.
The book begins in chapter 1, with: How to Be a Professional Journalist, where journalists are admonished to stick to the ethics of the profession beyond their qualifications, competence and experience.
Chapter 2-4 focused on: What You Need to be a Professional Journalist. This is basically about specialized knowledge, tools for the job and comportment, in and out of the newsroom.
Like Rotary Club International, whose founder-Paul Harris, was once a reporter with the Chronicle newspaper based in San Francisco, United States of America, professional journalists, the book noted must abide by the 4-way test. Please, ask Google for the Rotary club four-way test.
The entire 40 chapters of Otufodunrin’s book are loaded with ideas, opportunities, tips, and guides for journalists, online and offline.
Therefore, it is expected that professional journalists all over the world would get a copy of this book.
However, Otufodunrin should explore the possibility of developing each of the chapters into separate books.
In this time of down-sizing, right-sizing, hiring and firing, in this time when COVID-19 has almost wrecked the economies of individuals, corporate bodies, government agencies, states, nations, media outfits, etc, more hard copy newspapers are shutting down and journalists are going online to survive.
I may be wrong and therefore stand to be corrected. Some of us practising journalism in Nigeria, having our own websites or blogs are still trying to figure out how best to make money with our blogs or websites.
Otufodunrin should educate us here in addition to exploring the many opportunities for grants, fellowships, etc, as it seems to be easy for a Carmel to pass through the eye of the needle than for some journalists to scale through the rigour of filling and submitting forms for grants.
Copies of the book are available at Media Career Development Centre, 14 Fadare Street, end of Kayode Street, off Ijaye Road, Caterpillar BusStop, Ogba, Lagos.
Telephone: Titilope: 08074093655 Lekan: 08050498530
Email: info@mediacareerng.org
Twitter : @mediacareerngr