NAN-H-73
Diversification
By Desmond Ejibas
Port Harcourt, Sept. 21, 2017 (NAN) Mr Bayo Onanuga, the Managing Director of News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday urged media organisations in the country to diversify their investments to grow the business.
He made the call at the ongoing 13th All Nigeria Editors’ Conference (ANEC) and Extraordinary Convention in Port Harcourt.
He said newspaper houses ought to expand their operations by investing in radio and television to grow their business.
He added that “a newspaper house should not limit itself to just publishing; it should also go into
multimedia just like Ovation Magazine did with Ovation Television.
“We can do radio; we can do television and invest in other areas as obtainable in the days of Daily Times.
“I do not see any division between online news, newspapers and television because there is a convergence in the media industry.
“Newspaper can find itself moving into television because all the media are now together.”
The NAN boss urged media houses to be mindful of grammatical errors commonly seen in newspapers and called for the setting up of companies with sole responsibility to distribute newspapers to readers.
He said “my concern in Nigeria is that some of us waste a lot of time on matters that are not strictly professional.
“We at same time are concerned about printing and concerned about distribution, when there should be companies to distribute newspapers.
“In South Africa and Kenya, there are companies set up to distribute newspapers to newspaper houses but in our country, it has been difficult.
“We have to focus on our business as journalists. We need to practice good journalism.”
Onanuga said NAN was fully focused on expanding its multimedia services and web-based operations.
Mr Segun Osoba, a veteran journalist and former Governor of Ogun State, called for increased
cooperation among media organisations and practitioners.
According to him, there is nothing wrong in subscribing to NAN photo service instead of
engaging several photographers for the same picture.
“There is need for us to have more confidence in ourselves,” he said.
In his contribution, the Publisher of This Day, Nduka Obaigbena, said the journalism profession was evolving, so the business climate was changing.
He said “we need to ask ourselves the nature of our audience and how to respond to their
needs.
“We can work with NAN and can also offer perspectives to news that are available everywhere.
“This is because journalists are critical resource as they can cover news and also cover perspectives.” (NAN)
DES/JEO/HA
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Edited by Jane-Frances Oraka/Hadiza Mohammed-Aliyu