Press Release:

The Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development, in collaboration with Heinrich Boll Stiftung Foundation, is prepared to train twenty (20) journalists in a two-day journalist boot camp on the implications of constraining laws on freedom of expression and the media.

This training is set to hold from 26th – 27th September 2022, with selected journalists nominated by executives of different newsrooms cut across media organisations in Nigeria.

The boot camp is part of a project designed to understand and analyse the issues, implications, and effects of the current policies, acts and regulations that affect journalists and media houses in Nigeria.

Its central objective is to increase the capacity of the media to push for awareness, to drive better knowledge-driven procedures when creating such regulations and to get journalists to report and seek reform on oppressive media laws and regulations. The boot camp will also highlight media issues to identify strengths and weaknesses.

The Deputy Manager of the CJID’s Media Freedom project, Mrs Stephanie Adams-Douglas, said: ‘’It is hoped that by the end of the training/engagement exercise, an advocacy strategic tool on safeguarding press freedom and journalists safety would be crafted. This, in extension, would help promote the gospel of press freedom.’’

Following the boot camp, the CJID will host a coalition strategy meeting on developing a national policy for safeguarding press freedom and the safety of journalists with heads of media organisations and newsrooms in the country.

This meeting will be graced by executives of media newsrooms and civil society organisations who have dedicated their time, resources and voices to aid a better media space in Nigeria.

The coalition convening is also part of a broad project designed to understand and analyse the issues, implications and effects of the current policies, acts and regulations as it affects journalists and media houses in Nigeria. 

The main objective here is to design a national policy for safeguarding press freedom and the safety of journalists to seek reforms on oppressive media laws and regulations.

The meeting aims to develop a mechanism and a strategic advocacy action plan to methodically mitigate the various threats to the safety of journalists amidst the general violation of press freedom and expression in media organisations and civic spaces.