By Anayo Ezugwu

Experts at the PricewaterhouseCoopers, PwC Nigeria capability enhancement workshop for journalists, have asked media professionals to increase the level of investigative journalism in the country. They said investigative journalism would enable journalists to unravel hidden and untold stories that are of interest to the public.

Adejuwon Soyinka, editor, BBC News Pidgin Service, said investigative journalism has great impact on the society. He said it helps to correct the ills in the society, change family values, work values and the mindset of people towards positive thinking.

He said investigative journalism could influence government policies that would bring about social impact change in the society. Although he highlighted the dangers associated with investigative journalism to include threat to life of journalists, incessant harassment from those affected, and possible death of journalists, he however said the gains of successful investigative journalism worth taking the risk for the good of the society.

Soyinka shared his experience on recent investigative stories done by the BBC News Pidgin Service including Sweet-Sweet Codeine and The Anatomy of a Killing. He said he risked his life while investigating the Codeine story by going undercover.

“I think the major challenge was getting into the cartel. We didn’t expect what we met; we thought it was a simple case, but we realised it was more than that. The cartel has different people working for them. Some function as enforcers, foot soldiers, suppliers. They have a chain such that the end user, who could be a student, criminal, as the case may be, does not know.

“No access to the main person, no information. Who they know is the last contact. Even the last person they know doesn’t know the main supplier. So, it was a complex one. We realised we were dealing with a well-organised and dangerous organisation. They were armed; that was a challenge. We couldn’t go there as reporters and that was when we knew we had to go undercover,” he said.

Another facilitator at the programme urged journalists to learn how to use data in telling their stories. Victor Olorunfemi, manager and tax technology lead, PwC Nigeria, said media professionals should consider using fewer words in presenting their investigative reports.

He said using visuals in telling stories would not make a journalist to lose the ethics of his/her profession. “It is important for investigative journalists to understand the behaviour of online audience. Using data and technology to tell stories is very easy for journalists and the audience that would consume the content.

“Journalists need to move from what he/she thinks to what the data is saying. Data gives credibility to storytelling and the news media.  There are many online platforms where the journalists can gather credible and well researched data for their stories,” he said.

Olorunfemi encouraged journalists to visit those websites to get the data for their stories. “Choose to follow the data. Choose to communicate with impact. Keep it simple. If you can’t interpret the data, you can’t explain the data.”

On his part, Taiwo Oyedele, partner and head, tax and regulatory services, PwC Nigeria, said the company is training journalists to build trust in society and solve important problems. “Our support for the media through this workshop and the media excellence award is in line with our purpose which is to build trust in society and solve important problems.

“It is a demonstration of our strong belief that for the Nigerian people to enjoy good governance, the media must perform its role optimally and professionally and this is reflected in the quality of reporting, in the capacity of individual journalists to carry out research and investigations, in the independence of editorial judgments, and in their ability to use technology as an enabler,” he said.

– Oct. 12, 2018 @ 15:59 GMT |