Ugonma Cokey, a seasoned journalist and Deputy Director of News and Training at the Voice of Nigeria (VON), has challenged young journalists to make an impact and focus on bringing about change through their storytelling.
She made this call on Wednesday in Lagos during her session at the Technology Times Think Week 2024, an exclusive event themed “WIV: Storytelling Reimagined,” where she delivered a lecture on the “Fundamentals of Professional Broadcasting.”
In her presentation, Cokey emphasised the essential role journalists play in shaping public understanding and urged them to ask questions that suit the audience. “Your audience or viewer is king,” she noted, encouraging journalists to use simple language in presenting information. “Something a 90-year-old illiterate and a four-year-old child can understand.”
Ugonma Cokey at Technology Times Think Week 2024: Journalists must embrace change
In her presentation, Cokey emphasised the essential role journalists play in shaping public understanding and urged them to ask questions that suit the audience. “Your audience or viewer is king,” she noted, encouraging journalists to use simple language in presenting information. “Something a 90-year-old illiterate and a four-year-old child can understand.”
Cokey outlined key skills for effective broadcasting, such as attention to detail, strong communication abilities, and creativity, drawing from her own experience as a journalist at Voice of Nigeria and citing real-world examples.
Reflecting on shifts within the industry, Cokey highlighted adaptability and time management as critical skills for the operating environment in contemporary media industry.
She urged journalists to embrace new tools and software, multitasking and collaboration, while also adapting to story evolution.
Cokey reminded journalists that core journalistic ethics of accuracy, fairness and balance, remain paramount. Language usage, understanding of audience, non-disclosure of sources, not showing children and minors, respect for privacy, avoidance of plagiarism and respect for copyright, remain key professional values that journalists must always uphold, she emphasised.
She enjoined journalists present to “write the way you talk” highlighting that language is conversational. She spotlighted digital broadcasting, streaming services, podcasting and social media integration as emerging trends in professional broadcasting.
Her session was part of the wider Technology Times Think Week 2024 (#TTTW2024) programme, which aims to empower the Technology Times team with new skills under the theme “WIV: Witness, Inform & Visualise in Words, Images, and Videos” to elevate multimedia storytelling in the digital age for audience across Nigeria, Africa and beyond.