He Journalistic Innovation and Development Center (CJID) has trained 20 selected journalists from different media outlets in climate change coverage.
During the two-day workshop held in Abuja on August 9-10, journalists received training on various aspects of climate change reporting, including understanding concepts, causes, evidence, and impacts. of climate change in Africa, information on floods and environmental disasters, information with a gender balance, a solutions approach for reporting on climate change, digital journalism for climate change, among others.
The workshop aimed to equip participants with the right knowledge to report on climate change issues and hold the government accountable for climate change transition commitments, said Nicholas Adeniyi, CJID’s climate change project coordinator.
“There is a general dearth of knowledge on climate change issues across the region, and more often than not, environmental reports are misinterpreted as climate change reports. Despite the fact that Africa is the most vulnerable to climate change, studies show that the media in Africa pay little attention to reports on climate change.
“CJID’s capacity building series for journalists is a conscious effort to ensure we bridge the knowledge and capacity deficit of climate change reporting in West Africa and a way to change the narrative of low-end reporting. climate change”, Felicia Dairo, project director. saying.
Some of the facilitators include Tobi Oluwatola, Abdulkareem Mojeed, Felicia Dairo, Akintunde Babatunde, Adesola Effiwat, Tengi George – Okoli, and Silas Jonathan.
Some of the participants that Newslodge spoke with expressed their gratitude to the CJID for the workshop.
“I am going to apply everything I learned in my reporting in the sense that while reporting, I can now tell the difference between climate change and environmental issues. With this training now, I can now differentiate between the two (climate change and environmental issues). Thanks to this workshop, I now know that I have to fact-check every story idea I have and not just jump on it like I used to. Overall, the training was an eye-opener for me,” said Sylvia Okedi, health reporter for the Whistler newspaper.
“The workshop opened my eyes because I learned a lot, especially about the difference between climate change and environmental problems. It gave me ideas for formulating story ideas about climate change, data sources, and other things. I also learned what the energy transition to renewable energy is all about. I enjoyed all the sessions but enjoyed the digital tools and methodologies for climate change research taken by Babatunde and the fact checking on greenwashing and the psychology of climate change denial by Silas Jonathan,” said Yunus Umar , reporter for the WikkiTimes newspaper.
Opportunities were given to participants to access grants to support them in making climate change stories in the country.
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