Nigeria's finest: A short profile on Mr Remmy Nweke

Mr Remmy Nweke, who, at first glance appeared stern and composed, broke out in this even smile after I began talking to him about his blog during the Highway Africa conference this year. Picture taken from http://www.diplointernetgovernance.org/profile/IkeMowete?xg_source=activity

Being a part of the Highway Africa conference gave me a chance to meet some of Africa’s finest media professionals. God fearing and dedicated Remmy Nweke, the first Nigerian to be recognized in all his international prizes, is one such person. He is the Senior Reporter and Head of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) desk at Champion Newspapers Limited in Lagos, Nigeria. He is also the editor of the award-winning blog, ITRealms Online.
Nweke sees blogging as a semi-occupation. “You can call it my hobby, and a serious hobby at that,” he remarks. Nweke’s work keeps him busy as he has to be online most of the time, especially after closing work. According to Nweke, this requires discipline and a supportive family and wife. He is the first in a family of ten and is married to a trained journalist, Mrs Nkemdilim Nweke. When he was in primary school and even afterwards, Nweke usually worked on weekends with his father in order to earn money for his school fees. “I believe so much in hard work,” he says.
Hard work is definitely a large contributing factor to Nweke’s many achievements. “There is no year since 2002 that my journalism work is not professionally recognized,” Nweke says. As a founding editorial member of Highway Africa News Agency (HANA), he won the first ever HANA-SABC Journalist of the Year award. He is also the first Nigerian to ever be elected into the HANA editorial board. At this year’s Highway Africa Conference, he was the first runner up at the Telkom-Highway Africa New Media Awards.
Amongst his other great achievements is being the runner up in research and innovation at the African Information Society awards organized by the United Nations Economic Community for Africa (UNECA). He was also presented an award in the category of the Information Technology (IT) business solution for the second time at the 2005 African Siemens Profile awards held in South Africa. These are just a few of the numerous awards Nweke has bagged and there is no doubt that more are on the way. Nigeria has a reason to be proud.
Ever since Nweke read about Nigeria’s first President, the late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, he has always wanted to be a reporter. “ I always wanted to contribute to the growth of my society, which now has become a global village; in the fight against injustice and other social vices and I think that journalism offers me that opportunity, more so to educate and entertain the populace and improve the condition of lives around me through my writings”.
Nweke graduated from The Institute of Journalism and Management Education in Enugu, Nigeria with a Diploma in Journalism and a Diploma in Computer Studies. He went on to receive his Advanced Diploma in Journalism and also completed a Post Graduate Diploma programme in Contemporary Diplomacy with the University of Malta in collaboration with Diplo Foundation in 2006. He recently defended his Master of Art (MA) in Contemporary Diplomacy with the University of Malta.
According to Nweke, blogging is a valuable tool for journalists to market themselves online as they remain active in this information age by communicating well with people and reporting their activities. “The role of journalists in today’s society is to embrace technology, especially ICT as it portends the tripod for the future survival as the information century unfolds”. Nweke also emphasizes the importance of training and retraining as it leads to eventual success.
“Above all, I think breaking even in my career to become who I am today is my greatest achievement and I give the Almighty God the glory for His love and blessings,” says Nweke. Amen to that.

Follow ITRealmsOnline on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ITRealmsOnline.

Asanda: Beauty and brains

Asanda Guwa during the FJP’s spring school
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Asanda Guwa  was born in East London. A bubbly, friendly and outgoing person, Asanda like making jokes. She the type of person people are drawn to.

She values education, a value instilled in her by her grandmother who still inspires and motivates her. Asanda loves spending time with her family, because she never spent as much time with them as she was growing up.
She wants to make documentaries and tell stories of ordinary citizens because “each and everyone has got a story to tell".
Asanda spent most of formative years in boarding school, a situation she blames for the disconnect she appears to have with her mother.
But at least she interacted wtih different cultures and personalities and found school exciting and fun. "My second home," she called it.
Her grandmother taught her to love education.
And she does.

Coveritlive - Digital Skills Training Workshop

by Simphiwe Kanityi


...In reality when it comes to digital skills you are talking a foreign language to (some) journalists today. Peter Verweij, a senior lecturer at the school of Journalism at Utrecht in the Netherlands, made it clear that you do not need to be on school premises in order to learn about using your cell phone as a tool to cover news live. Proactive (data collection) and reactive (voxpop) reporting are the two models that today’s' journalists never thought existed or at least could not distinguish how each is important than another. To put this in an understandable context, many journalists just opt for reactive reporting because it seems to be the easy model. Example, when the petrol price is going up they go around interviewing people on how they feel and how that will affect their day to day living. This is not wrong according to Verweij but there could be a better way that journalists can go for. Journalists can use their phones (internet) to collect data, meaning comparing petrol prices from various cities, previous years as to produce a strong story with relevant facts.

As the heading suggests, COVERITLIVE - means that you can directly cover any event only by using your phone. This gives you time now to collect enough data not just shallowly cover the story based on how people feels without covering the core issues. You see an accident, you do not just take pictures but seek more information about the city, the roads, past accidents and reasons and that will give you enough data for analysis so as to come up with well informed stories.

What was interesting about the workshop is that it was not just a one man talking session but have the practical sides as well. Participants had an opportunity to put into practice what they are learning and given the results they could find, it could be said the real time web reporting is working and necessary for today's journalism. One easy and trusted way that you can go about in finding information from around the world and specific countries, you can use Google public data, gap minder, wolfram alpha and you will find all the relevant information you need. Then for the immediate broadcast of this you can use tools such as coveritlive, Twitter, Audio Boo, Ustream, Qik and Vuvox. These are the tools where audio, video text and pictures can be uploaded. Amongst all these tools once again, blogging is still the way to go.

This therefore calls for all African journalists to report African news in a well informed position and not just goes with the stream of bad news. Verweij exclaimed that "there can be bad news about Africa, but can you not just give me what you see but give me data analysis, and bring together the figures". Therefore web reporting is important and todays' news rooms should be working towards this direction compared to television which is based on emotions. But the most important message from this first session is that journalist must not be so deadline minded to a point where they leave the facts behind. Figures, data, calculations and knowing the difference when the number are read as text or just as numbers and where they should be in Microsoft office excel matters most when it comes to getting the facts right. We will keep on updating you on the progress of the workshop since it will take the whole day of this last day of Highway Africa Conference.

The start of a great journey

My experience of the Future Journalist Programme so far has been mind-blowing. This is my first time in Grahamstown and from what I had heard, Grahamstown Winters are super cold and sometimes unpredictable. But, when we arrived, the weather was amazing! (Except for today of course, it’s absolutely freezing!). I have already learnt so much from being here and attending the Highway Africa Conference but I know that there is still so much for me to learn.

One the best parts of being here has been meeting my fellow FJP participants, and I have to say that we are a diverse and incredibly funny group of people. Lebogang, my fellow University of Johannesburg comrade and Mr Twitter 2010, is always on his phone. I think we will literally have to pry the phone out of his hands to stop him from tweeting all the time. And Sushi, my fellow lover of African men, is still arguing with me that Andre Ayew (of Baghana Baghana fame) is her man. Sushi, I’m sorry to say, he’s mine (you can keep Boateng).

Junior, aka J.R., is always cracking a joke and he does become very chatty after a couple of cold beverages at dinner... Jenny and Mina, I’m pretty sure that none of us will ever forget that white lamb and “cous cous-esque” rice. It has really been amazing meeting all of the FJP participants and that’s why we need to come back – to learn more together and about each other.

Another great part of being here has been attending the Highway Africa Conference. There is still a long way to go for the African media and attending the conference has highlighted some the burning issues that African journalists still have to deal with - amongst these being access to information and the digital divide. Networking with the some of the delegates was also wonderful. This conference is the greatest gathering of African journalists, so I feel very privileged to have had the chance to meet some of these people.

The discussions and workshops I attended have also been extremely interesting. Having a chance to listen to the former President of Ghana, Mr John Kufuor, speak about “African Media and Global Development Agenda” was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The rest of the plenaries featured some very high-profile guests and it was good to hear some of their views.

I definitely would love to come back here. Being a Joburg gal, Grahamstown seems like a small town but I have to admit that I have been stung but the G-town bug. We have been treated wonderfully, from the delicious food to the comfortable residence, everything has been fantastic. I’m looking forward to regularly contributing to the blog and developing my skills as an aspiring fashion journalist. As the French say – merci beaucoup FJP!

By: Zinhle Mncube

Doing it for herself

Having been at the Highway Africa Conference for just a day, I am proud to say that I am used to the hustle and bustle of things - delegates and journalists rushing to the next workshop and everyone else scrambling to get a seat on a shuttle to lunch or dinner.

In and amongst all the rush, I managed to meet Sampa Kangwa-Wilkie, one of the speakers at a discussion I attended on the challenges and prospects on access to information in Africa. The first thing I noticed about her was her bright green scarf and long dread locks. I was also drawn to her by the vigour with which she spoke and the passion she had about ordinary African citizens having the socio-economic right to access to information.

When I first spoke to her, she was just as captivating. Kangwa-Wilkie is Zambian and she works as a MISA (Media Institute of Southern Africa) Media Consultant on Free Media and she also heads the Freedom of Expression and Media Law Policy Programme. She has extensive knowledge about the situation of access to information in Africa and one of the most interesting things she told me was the fact that South Africa is the only African country with a comprehensive freedom of expression law.

One of her main aims is to make sure that this changes, so that many more Africans will be able to know exactly their government is doing with the country’s funds. One of her other roles is to step in whenever an African country’s government denies journalists information. She believes that this is particularly important because of the upcoming 20th anniversary of the Windhoek Declaration on Press Freedom in 2011.

Meeting Kangwa-Wilkie has also been one my highlights of the Highway Africa Conference so far. I believe that her work is extremely important for Africa and I love the fact that she is taking the initiative to change the press freedom situation in Africa. I will definitely be keeping in touch with her.

By: Zinhle Mncube

One giant leap

Exhilarating, enthralling, somewhat overwhelming – just some of the adjectives I would use to describe my first day at the Highway Africa Conference. When I first found out that I would be attending this prestigious conference, I was excited, intrigued, and yes, a little scared – I knew what Highway Africa Conference was about, but I was not quite sure what to expect. So with wide-eyed curiosity, I went to the conference and what I experienced was beyond any expectations.

Just as Europe’s fashion fraternity converge upon Paris Fashion Week for the season’s latest trends, so too do African journalists converge at the Highway Africa Conference to discuss various issues and trends impacting on the African media. The conference is in its 14th year and it seeks to continually develop journalism and journalism education, as well as a vibrant network of African journalists.

This year’s theme for the conference is ‘African voices in the global media space’ and the conference features exhibitions, book launches, training programmes and discussions around this theme. I think that this is a timely theme with the growth of new media technologies and the resultant explosion of information and media content producers – how are African voices contributing to this new media environment? Is the African media still dominated by a western concept of what news is? What about the multitude of African journalists that are harassed, maimed and killed for expressing themselves, when the right to seek and impart information should be an inalienable right from the bustling streets of New York City, to war-torn neighbourhoods of Sudan?

These questions continued to linger in my mind as I sat through the rest of the discussions in the company of esteemed guests such as Mathatha Tsedu, chairperson of the African Editors Forum and Mr John Kufuor, former president of Ghana. As an aspirant African journalist, I have to be aware of the many burning issues facing the African media. I have already learnt a lot from my first day here at the Highway Africa Conference, and I believe that this knowledge is invaluable for my career.

We all know that as much as there are many journalism students in the country, however, only a few of these students end up being journalists, and of those journalists, only some achieve longevity in their careers. As such, I believe that attending this conference will expose me to influential people who can greatly aid me in my career and it will give me knowledge that will help me establish myself as a young journalist.

Attending the Highway Africa Conference is like drinking from a fountain of wisdom – only good things can come from it. In the same way Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk moon, saw his exploits as a "one giant leap for mankind", I see attending this conference as one giant leap for my career.

By: Zinhle Mncube