The Daily Trust Foundation, a corporate social responsibility arm of Media Trust Group (owners of Daily Trust titles, Trust TV and Trust Radio), yesterday in Abuja began a five-day training for journalists in book writing, editing and publishing.
The training had about 40 participants from print electronic media organisations across the country.
The chairman of the Foundation, Alhaji Bilya Bala, said the training was part of the foundation’s objectives of capacity building for journalists in Nigeria.
“The workshop is put together under our Media Enterprise Lab project. This project, funded by MacArthur Foundation, is conceived as a way of building the capacity of journalists to make money from the skills they acquired while on the job.
“No doubt, writing is one of the important skills journalists possess while doing their daily reportage for print, television, radio, and now social media. This skill can be deployed in writing diverse kinds of books – instructional materials for schools, biographies, non-fiction/specialized books; historical books; novels, short stories, scripts for documentary films, etc.
“It’s our desire that at the end of this workshop, many participants will pick up the challenge to engage in one form of writing or another and extra income,” he said.
Director (Africa), MacArthur Foundation, Dr Kole Shettima, said it had been supporting 70 media outlets whose activities include “training, mentorship and explorating work on revenue generation to help with financial and editorial independence.”
President, Nigerian Publishers Association, Uchenna Cyril Anioke, said: “The time is now for Nigerian authors, writers and translators to actively collaborate with publishers to provide books in our indigenous languages, from the nursery to tertiary levels. The benefits are legion.”
