#MobileNews .ng is poised to #innovateAFRICA like no other media platform.
--Exploring all possible #digitalinnovations including mobile apps and others in news gathering, packaging and presentation, we proffer solutions to challenges facing the contemporary media industry.
Our project presents the unique method of community people and professional multimedia journalists working together in gathering news to increase quantity and quality of news items coming from our very remote and rural areas.
#SupportUs support #MobileNews .ng to #innovateAFRICA
**Our #MobileNews .ng project***
As youths, our strength and ability in changing our world to become that ideal society that we dream of are limitless and we can only make that mark through potent innovations.
We believe that aggressive media reportage of our communities is timely to elicit the type of discussions and actions needed to save the most important aspect of our lives that are seriously endangered, thus limiting our socio-economic development.
Working with a strong team, we are poised to #innovateAfrica with our #MobileNews .ng media platform aimed at promoting Good Governance, Human Right, equality and Environmental Sustainability in our land.
We achieve this in a very unique way of collaborating with community people, in increasing quantity and quality of news from rural and remote areas, using the now commonest gadget-#MOBILEPHONE.
Professional journalists and trained citizen journalists spread across communities, collect multimedia information namely, sound, pictures and videos. Our clearly processed news information, through digital data, data journalism, images, drawings and info-graphics, serve as strong tools to attract audiences’ attention via social media platforms such as twitter, Facebook, audio-boom, and blogs, as well as the traditional medium.
Our project will tackle major challenges facing African watchdog media, including;
- neglect of rural and remote areas which media organisations lack the capacity to access, yet their issues matter to achieve sustainable development.
-people’s lack of trust for news is addressed since the masses will surely trust news items which they co-produced
-people’s apathy towards news will become history because they will certainly like to read, listen to and watch news about them
-problems of carrying out investigative journalism are solved because there are many people at different places investigating particular issues.
-difficulty in getting opinions of the masses about governance is eliminated with opinion poll/interviews via phones and social media. Etc.
Like I said, we have a team of highly talented, hardworking and passionate professionals to drive this project to excellence. Our team leader’s (Innocent Okoro Onoh) past achievements also speaks volume about how fast we can innovate and positively transform Africa.
Autobiography of #Innocent Onoh .O
I believe that journalists in their agenda setting roles through news writing and editing, shape public thoughts and directions, as well as influence government policies in ways that promote the living standards of the masses.
This passion to work for societal good became strong in me during my National Youth Service year between 2007 and 2007.
We were about 6 youth corps members deployed to teach in a very remote and primitive town , Kudedu, located between Plateau state and Bauchi State in Northern Nigeria. My colleagues all rejected the deployment, and looked for better places in the city where there were power and water. I vowed to stay because I wanted to make a change.
Besides being the only science teacher in the school, within that one year, i mobilized village youths and my students to build the first ever toilet facilities in Kudedu, a town alleged to have existed for over 100 years without a toilet.
During that period, I also carried out an aggressive tree planting to reduce impacts of desert encroachment in the area which was barren of trees because the poor villagers cut them to sell just to feed.
In addition to numerous other community service projects, I also thought communities in the area safer sex and was the first to introduce the use of condom in the regions then known to have high incidence of HIV/AIDS.
After the mandatory national service in early 2007, I told myself that to make the greater mark in the lives of the people; journalism was the way to go. In November that same year, I was employed by the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, which is the largest radio network in Africa with over 40 FM stations and a network that is believed to reach over 180 Million people daily.
In my about 8 years of practice as a journalist, I have used my position to give voice to the voiceless, and gave attention to topical and human interest issues covering diverse areas including environment, climate change, health, politics and economy, making great impacts in my society.
Specifically, in 2013, my story about the consequences of Vitamin A deficiency, added impetus to the effort aimed at giving over 160 million Nigerians access to the micro-nutrient.
I wish to say that in appreciation of my journalism efforts in that regard, HarvestPlus, an arm of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria, paid for the distribution of a full trailer load of Vitamin A cassava stems to over 3,500 farmers in my home town, Arochukwu, Abia State in South East Nigeria. The idea is that since cassava is a staple food in which every person is known to consume different cassava based delicacies, the bio-fortification of Vitamin A in the crop, is the easiest way of addressing the deficiency of the important micro-nutrient among the masses of Nigeria.
As I write, the cassava specie has been re-named “Innocent” by some people.
My passion for environment and climate change reporting , has taken me around my country’s 6 geopolitical zones , and in the process , produced ground breaking news reports on impacts of rapidly encroaching desert in northern Nigeria, coastal erosion in South East, flooding , bio-diversity extinction, among other grave consequences of climate
change.
I wish to state that my efforts have also attracted recognitions and awards, the latest of them being;
--Winner 2016 Earth Journalism Network, Climate Change Media Partnership, Fellowship, Marrakesh, Morocco.
--Winner 2016 Biodiversity Fellowship to the IUCN World Conservation Congress, Hawaii.
At this point, I wish to say that my goal and aspiration in terms of positively affecting my world through journalism remain even stronger. I dream to see every Nigerian have access to three square meals daily.
I want a Nigeria that the 75% of the population living below poverty line are saved from abject poverty to be able to live normal and progressive lives. I want a Nigeria and Africa that is able to maximally harness their huge renewable energy potential to light up the society and enable steady economic growth and development, like their counterparts in developed world. More especially, I dream of a Nigeria where people will no longer be born and grow with filth, due to very poor waste management system, that is also blamed for the acceleration of contagious diseases leading to many deaths annually.
To achieve all these, I used the last few years and Months to enhance my skills in news gathering, writing and presentation, as well as data journalism. I have also worked to move away from the mindset of a traditional journalist, by being a multi-media journalist, who owns active blog, twitter, Facebook, audio-boom and other infectious socio-media platforms, to better communicate the news to the people.
These trainings and capacity building efforts were carried out in prestigious institutions including the Lagos business School; Nigerian Institute of Journalism and the WAIFEM, Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Besides, as a scientist with Bachelor of Science honours in Geology, from the prestigious university of Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria, I am well abreast with issues and reports them effortlessly.
Now with #MobileNews .ng, I hope to bring the best media innovations towards promoting the right values for Africa’s sustainable development and progress.
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