The Female Reporters’ Leadership Programme is not a fellowship about feminism or building a crop of ladies pumped full of feminism adrenalin. But again, Feminism means different things to diverse people.
It is about re-engineering the minds of female reporters for greater leadership roles in their newsrooms and increasing intentionality in mainstreaming issues relating to women in their news reportage.
However, the fellowship has gone beyond intentionally forging powerful career-oriented female leaders in Nigerian newsrooms.
The lucky participants are not just groomed for handling leadership positions in their career lives; they are also shown how to be effective in their work lives.
Indeed, female reporters lucky to be accepted into the coveted Fellowship are equipped with work and home tools to help them stand out and make a difference in their careers, newsrooms and homes.
It has become a stereotype for many Nigerian female reporters to be tagged as, “not being able to marry or remained marry,” because of the insane work life.
However, that sort of stereotyping is shattered at the fellowship as these women are made to understand the importance of schedule since they are juggling too many balls.
Women are underreported in Nigerian media space and underrepresented in Nigerian newsrooms. These are some of the gaps the Female Reporters’ Leadership Programme seeks to bridge.
It is one of the continuing successful and loudly applauded projects of the Wole Soyinka Centre For Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ).
The Executive Director of WSCIJ, Mrs Motunrayo Alaka, said: “The Reportwomen! Female Reporters’ Leadership Programme (FRLP) is aimed at empowering female reporters with the skills, finesse, support and tools to take bold steps that help position them for the highest leadership roles in their media houses.
“The programme, an initiative of the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism, supported by Free Press Unlimited, commenced in June 2017. It intends to contribute to the mobilisation of a network of female reporters oriented for leadership, who can mainstream gender in news reports. The pilot project is a fellowship.
“The FRLP is a build-up on the Report Women programme of the WSCIJ, which was designed to focus on major issues of access and abuse as they affect girls and women in Nigeria and implemented in collaboration with the Royal Netherlands Embassy.
“Through the Report Women project, which commenced in 2014, WSCIJ has trained over eighty reporters across the country and commissioned thirty-one stories to improve the quantum and quality of reportage of girls and women issues in Nigeria.
“It has also published a documentary, titled “Report Women: Untold Stories of Girls and Women in Nigeria” which is available for viewing online, among other activities.”
The sixth cohort of Fellowship has started in Lagos, Nigeria. There are 12 lucky reporters and the training is already intense.
These 12 ladies are chosen from a competitive pool of 160 female applicants.
The select journalists include Melony Ishola, Head of Programmes, Video Unit, PUNCH; Aisha Gambo, Senior Correspondent, News Agency of Nigeria (NAN); Jemilat Nasiru, Staff Writer, The Cable; Juliet Buna, reporter and editor, Crest 91.1FM; Bilkis Lawal, reporter and editor, Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (Bond FM); Rasheedat Iliyas, Manager, News and Current Affairs, Radio Nigeria Harmony FM; Temitope Obayendo, Online Editor, Pharmanews; Mary Agidi, Features and Opinion Writer, The Hope; Dana Zagi, Gender Lead, Media Trust Group; Chigozie Victor, Senior Editor, Zikoko Citizen, Big Cabal Media; Christiana Alabi-Akande, Managing Editor, Development Reporting Service; and Gloria Attah, news anchor and reporter, Clearview Television.
The fellowship and the broader Report Women! The News and Newsroom Engagement project has been supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation since 2021.
Report Women! News and Newsroom Engagement is designed to engage the management and staff of news media organisations in Nigeria, and eventually Africa, to increase the representation of women in news coverage, newsroom leadership and as sources of news.
Since its inception in 2014, the Report Women! The programme has worked to increase the quantity and quality of reports on issues affecting women and girls in Nigeria. Over the past decade, WSCIJ has trained 537 journalists across Nigeria and Ghana, supported 136 stories and 138 leadership projects, published six research on women’s representation in the media, produced six documentaries, launched a female experts’ source guide and engaged newsrooms on the leadership of women in the news and newsrooms.
The Female Reporters Leadership Programme, introduced in 2017, has produced 86 fellows across five cohorts and driven intentional efforts to place more women in leadership positions within newsrooms and news.
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This is an ongoing conversation. In the next conversation, I shall talk about how the fellowship changed the trajectory of my life and career.
