African Innovations and stories take the main stage.

The African media professionals are still relishing the quality content and exposure that the Africa Media Festival 2024 in Kenya gave them. We at Media Career Development Network, of course, enjoyed seeing African innovations taking the main stage and matters concerning African media being discussed. We are also glad to know that Nigeria’s Humangle Data Journalism project is one of the two shortlisted in Africa for the Sigma Award.

Media Talk Points and Focus.

The second edition of the Africa Media Festival hosted over 500 participants and about 70 speakers from across 18 countries in the Nairobi National Museum, Kenya between February 21 and 22.

The Baraza Media Lab curated festival convened innovators, researchers, technologists and professionals from different genres of the media for sessions, conversations, workshops, demos and other programmes focused on Africa to answer the question: “What is Next in Media?”??

This 2024 festival, employing a different model from the previous year’s, delivered on the promises the Lead Curator, Christine Mungai made in an interview with Luminate to spotlight innovations in the African media ecosystem.?Read the MCDN report on the event here

Addresses by Onica Makwakwa, the Executive Director of Global Digital Inclusion Partnership and Dutch Ambassador in Kenya, His Excellency Maarten Brouwer opened the floor of Africa media-centric conversations and programs for the two days.

Innovators and journalists like Zenzele Ndebele of CITE Zimbabwe who invented Alice an AI news presenter; Patricia Andago of Odipo Dev Kenya whose organisation worked on the Silencing Women project driving action against femicide in Kenya demoed their works.

From Nigeria, Joshua Olufemi demoed Dataphyte’s platform providing a sustainable platform for providing and sourcing original local data called Goloka.? Wale Lawal of? The Republic, also exposed the innovative ways to deliver print journalism experience and serving niche audience. Many others took the main stage to demo their latest works and innovations, solving problems inherent to African media.

The media fest also featured workshops, creative pre and post-event programs and Ignite Talks which Christine described as compressed Ted Talks, one by Rishad Patel of Splice Media can be seen here.

In a similar event, the University of Lagos Mass Communication Alumni Association (UMCAA) is hosting its maiden communications festival in April. As reported by the NIJ Insight the festival is set to hold between 16th and 18th at the Department of Mass Communication and J.F. Ade Ajayi Auditorium in Unilag.

The Communications festival promises exhibitions, lecture series, mentoring sessions, celebrations, product launches, book launches, awards, competitions and entrepreneurship.

Representing quality data journalism projects done in Africa, HumAngle’s GIS/OSINT specialist, Mansir Muhammed ’s investigative report, ‘Finding Nigeria’s Forgotten Mass Graves Through Satellite Data’ was among the 52 works shortlisted globally for the prestigious Sigma Awards 2024.

The report is one of the only two works selected in Africa for the award, Europe had the most, 17, followed by North America, 15, South America 9, Asia 8, MENA and Oceania had 1 each.

Mansir brilliantly employed satellite imagery and other open-source intelligence to reveal the burial sites of victims of extrajudicial killings during the counterinsurgency operations in North East Nigeria between 2012 and 2018 in an extensive investigation published in collaboration with New Lines Magazine.

Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism held a 3-day journalism conference at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria talking about AI, Journalism, and collaboration in Nigerian Universities. The conference featured a keynote address by CCIJ Executive Director, Jeff Kelly Lowenstein on the confluence of AI and collaborative journalism opening the floor for a rich discourse on AI, Data mining and collaborations. One of the sessions of the conference moderated by the Africa Editor of CCIJ Ajibola Amzat can be listened to here

FactCheckAfrica is currently campaigning against information pollution and increasing awareness of the need for verifying information across Nigeria. The organisation has hosted training, conferences and engagement drives across networks, campuses and local communities in the different regions of the country.

Latest Career Movements and Wins

Two media houses in Nigeria recently announced a change in their leadership. TVC COMMUNICATIONS will now be led by Victoria Abiola Ajayi as the GM/CEO after taking over from Andrew Hanlon. Former NUJ president AbdulWaheed Odusile was also appointed CEO of KAFTAN TV to lead the Africa-centric original content TV.

The award-winning freelance journalist with a penchant for telling impact-driven African stories, Ope Adetayo recently announced that he has taken up the role of Nigeria Correspondent with the international news agency Reuters after over four years of freelancing.

Seun Akioye (He/Him) after years of impactful active journalism is joining ActionAid Nigeria as Manager Social Mobilisation.

Some of the journalists who applied for the various opportunities announced by the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development as mentioned in the last newsletter have been selected for the respective programs and have started the trainings, fellowships and projects selected for.

The ICIR has announced the fellows selected for the? Strengthening Public Accountability for Results and Knowledge SPARK Project supported by International Budget Partnership. Among the 20 selected journalists are Justina Asishana and Royal Ibeh from The Nation Newspaper and Leadership newspapers respectively.

Journalists, like Ijeoma Opara , who were selected for the RNTC Media Training Centre program have concluded their training and will proceed to implement the knowledge gained in their works across their various platforms.

What’s New

In commemoration of International Women’s Day, our journalist Noah Aderoju spoke with Stella Din - Jacob of TVC COMMUNICATIONS and Omótólá Adérìnsólá Adébánjo of BBC News on how female journalists can navigate career and social demands while aiming for growth in their media career. Read the interview here

It is anniversary season for media houses in Nigeria, from the old legacy media Punch Newspapers , celebrating half a century, to the young HumAngle Media and Prime Progress who are still a little shy of their quinquennium, Media Career Development Network celebrates your impactful work in the Nigerian media. We also celebrate TheCable and Big Cabal Media clocking a decade this year.

Investigative journalist 'Fisayo Soyombo ’s latest undercover investigation exposes the corrupt insides of Nigeria Customs-enabled smuggling. Like the recent Premium Times Nigeria investigation, it shows the amount of rot embedded in the law enforcement agency of the country.

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What is Coming! Opportunities for Journalists

Big Cabal Media , publishers of TechCabal and Zikoko are calling aspiring journalists, content creators, data analysts, event managers and media enthusiasts to apply for paid internship programme offers before March 16.?

News Central TV is also looking for a Webmaster SEO Specialist, Social Media Community Manager and drivers to join their team in Lagos.

Check out more opportunities for you in our latest compilation of media opportunities with deadlines in this month here.

Thank you for reading this edition of MCDN Media Career Diaries (MC Diaries) a community-powered and community-focus publication for the Nigeria media professional community. Please ensure the success of this publication by engaging with it and sharing it with your colleagues.

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