Journalists urged to embrace media innovation to remain relevant

The Rector of the West African Broadcast Media Academy (WABMA), Ken Ike Okere, has urged journalists to embrace innovations technologies.

Speaking at the commissioning of its Abuja centre and graduation on Thursday in Abuja, Okere said innovation is key to make journalists stay relevant, stay at the top and grow in the sector.

“Whatever you know may not last more than one year, you need to keep knowing, learning and applying what you have learnt. Media innovation is the fastest of any sector because it is driven by information and communication technologies. These technologies are evolving at such a speed that knowledge is now a maximum of two years and it will be stale so we need to keep on innovating,” he said.

He said the academy had graduated over 3,000 students since its inception in 2020 and equip its students with skills on theoretical foundation of the profession and the network to thrive.

On his part, the registrar of the academy, Joseph Obari, said journalism students need to view innovation that are occurring in the media as means to make their task easier.

“The simple example that every word document has an editor application embedded in it, so, if you are a good reporter, you should be able to use those kind of things on your computer to check what you are writing in terms of your grammar and spelling. That is one of the artificial intelligence that is subtle and embedded,” he said.