As a senior reporter with the Nigerian Tribune, Ifedayo Ogunyemi and fifteen other top journalists and media professionals globally have been named as the LEDE Fellows — journalism entrepreneurs spreading solutions journalism to their communities and beyond by the Solutions Journalism Network.
Ogunyemi, who is also a fact-checker, solutions reporter and media coach covers politics, climate change, education, health, media, disabilities, issues concerning women and girls, and more.
The fellows according to the announcement by SJN were selected for the quality, depth and potential impact of their projects from a pool of more than 250 applicants.
“They will spend the next 12 months working on projects that: Leverage networks of journalism professionals; Engage communities; Disseminate solutions stories and Elevate the people and narratives that problem-focused reporting misses.
“They will be experimenting with everything from newsletters to YouTube channels to innovative community engagement. Wide-ranging in beat, medium, geography and scope, their projects will focus on one or more of these core questions, with the aim of providing insights that can be shared across the Solutions Journalism Network: how to broadcast solutions journalism to new audiences; how to spread solutions journalism regionally, on the ground; and how to build solutions, journalism subscribers and ambassadors.”
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Ifedayo’s LEDE project, Campus Solutions, aims to train journalism educators and mobilize student journalists to report solutions stories on education systems and more.
Responding to his selection, Ifedayo said he is really thrilled to be selected after not making the cut for the previous cohort.
“After two rejections from two SoJo fellowships by the same organisation in about 13 months, I kept on researching into how I could make my project idea and application better and my resolve and focus on what to do was key into my eventual selection this time around. And I’m confident in the network of people who will work with me for the success of this project God-willing,” he stated.
He explained that his project was informed by reports about developments in tertiary institutions in Nigeria that have largely been problem-focused.
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“They’ve been about what’s not working and how we are not getting things right. That is one of the narratives that Campus Solutions is trying to adjust. To report constructively about how these challenges facing tertiary education in Nigeria are being addressed even in those little ways.
“Who are best to report these stories? The campus journalists are first the victims of these challenges, the beneficiaries of these responses and first responders. They will be engaged, trained and mobilise to report WHOLE stories from their campuses”
According to him, the project which will also train journalism lecturers in Oyo State on how best to inculcate solutions journalism in their curricula and course works will increase the number of well-trained solutions journalists in the country.
Meet the 2022 fellows and learn more about their projects: