SMC Brief - May 2013

SCHOOL OF MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION PAN-ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY

SMC brief

MAY 2013

An In house publication of the School of Media and Communication, Pan-Atlantic University

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e c e n t e ve n t s i n t h e University have brought strongly to my mind the saying that the only constant thing is change. The Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, expressed this idea by saying, “Change alone is unchanging.” Many times, in the face of change, force of habit steps in, and we dig in our heels and refuse to budge. This refusal to change is the source of that oft heard fallacious argument by which one tends to reject the introduction of innovation, not on the basis of a reasoned argument, but on the basis of habit: “This is the way we have done it in the past, and therefore this is the way we’ll continue to do it.”

Change is inevitable, and one must be flexible about it in order to handle it gracefully. Herbert Spencer, the English philosopher, notes that “[a] living thing is distinguished from a dead thing by the multiplicity of the changes at any moment taking place in it.”

Thus, whether we like it or not, we necessarily undergo change.

Of course, not all change is welcome, and many times it catches us unprepared. But this is the reality we must deal with. And, short of fossilizing all reality, we will either have to adapt to change or find ourselves being left behind.

The beauty of it all is that we all can also be agents of change and not merely persons that are acted upon by change.

Our lead story is about the big change that has taken place in the University. A consequence of this change, as you will also notice, is that the masthead of the newsletter now has a new look. I hope you like it. I hope also that you will enjoy this issue.

Ikechukwu Obiaya newsletter@smc.edu.ng

PAU to PAU:

Pan-African University Changes Name to Pan-Atlantic University

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an-African University is now to be known as Pan-Atlantic University. The change of name took effect from the 24th of May, 2013, and it has also necessitated a change of the University's shield. The ViceChancellor, Prof. Juan Elegido, who made the announcement of the change of name, stated that the decision to take a new name has been necessitated by the creation of an institution with a similar name.

Prof. Elegido stated that in 2008, the African Union (AU) established a Pan-African University, which is intended to be a network of universities across Africa. This meant that here, in Nigeria, there would be two Pan-African universities. The first was the private university based in Lagos and owned by the Pan-African University Foundation and which had been in existence since 2002. The second would be a node of the AUsupported institution, which would operate from the University of Ibadan.

According to the Vice-Chancellor,

several efforts to get the AU to change the name of its institution met with no success. “Once it became clear that we could not get the AU to alter its decision, we decided to change our name,” he said. “This is because the confusion which could arise from sharing our name with another institution would be damaging for everyone concerned. In choosing 'PanAtlantic University' we were mindful of its closeness to the former name and of the fact that we can retain the acronym, PAU.” The new name has been approved by the University's Governing Council and the Nigerian Universities Commission (NUC). In his various addresses to the staff, students and alumni of the University, the Vice Chancellor has been at pains to stress that all previous documents issued by the University remain valid and that those who have a need of it can approach the Registry of the University fo r co ve r i n g l e tte rs fo r s u c h documents.

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ICT Skills are Critical to National Development

(L-R) Mr. Peter Nwaochei, Prof. Emevwo Biakolo, Prof. Cleopas Angaye and Mr. Bayero Agabi

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he possession of skills in Information Communication Technology (ICT) has become a necessity for the much desired transformation in the nation. Professor Cleopas Angaye, the Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) stated this while speaking at the May edition of the Breakfast With… forum of the School of Media and Communication Alumni Association (SMCAA).

Prof. Angaye, who spoke on “The Role of ICT in the Transformation Agenda and Job Creation,” noted that the acquisition of the necessary ICT skills would guarantee employment opportunities and job security nationwide as long as all Nigerians were ready to play the necessary roles.

Describing the role that NITDA is playing in the nation's transformation agenda and in the national quest for job creation, he affirmed that the institute is committed to ensuring that Nigerians in all walks of life acquire ICT skills, as a way of informing and empowering them.

In his words: “In a globalized world, so many things are done via the internet today. In health and agriculture, for instance, you can use the internet to communicate disasters, sensitize and warn against diseases, and, through Eagriculture, you can pass necessary information to farmers and other stakeholders.” He went on to disclose that NITDA had established over 400

rural information technological centres nationwide. Each centre, he added, is equipped with a generator, 20 personal computers, and a computer server, to

ensure the training of 20 people at a go.

Prof. Angaye however noted that, due to the energy crisis in the country, the sustainability of the initiative remains a challenge. He also regretted that many communities are not buying into the initiative. He went on to stress that media practitioners have a major role to play by supporting NITDA through the dissemination of relevant information.

Also speaking on the occasion, Professor Emevwo Biakolo, the Dean of the School of Media and Communication, drew the attention of Prof. Angaye to the usefulness of publicprivate partnerships in the attainment of the NITDA goals. According to Prof.

Biakolo, “From all indications, multiple partnerships is the way to go for your organization if we must meet the objectives of ICT development in the country for the desired benefits.”

Class of CME 5 Lends a Helping Hand

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embers of the Certificate in Media Enterprise Group Five class (CME 5) have organised a seminar/workshop for senior secondary students. The event, which took place on Monday, the 28th of May, at St. Jude's Private School, in Festac Town, was attended by about 100 students, from 4 different schools.

The activity was partially intended to expose the students to the different opportunities available in the media and communication industry. To this end, there were various presentations that focused on the different areas of the industry such as print, radio, corporate communications, television,

marketing, event management, social media and their associated specializations.

The CME 5 class also engaged the students with games and activities that included question and answer sessions, group work and discussions. The students were also entertained by a comedian and some musicians, and they went home with a lot of corporate gifts provided by members of the class.

This is the second such activity organised by the CME 5 class. In the previous activity that took place in December 2012, the class visited a number of homes for the less privileged to take them the Christmas cheer.

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SMC Update Miss Adepeju Adigun (M.Sc. FT 2) has got married to Mr. Jide Oyewole. The wedding took place in Lagos on Saturday, the 11th of May, 2013. We wish the couple a very happy and fruitful marriage.

The wife of Engr. Kingsley Ejiofor (AWARES 11) has given birth to a baby girl. The child, Princess, was born on the 11th of February, 2013. She was dedicated to God on Sunday, the 5th of May, 2013. Our congratulations go to the family.

Mr. Alex Eyengho (M.Sc. FT 4) has been elected to the post of Vice President of the International Federation of Film Producers Associations (FIAPF). Mr. Eyengho, a filmmaker and President of the Association of Nollywood Core Producers, is the first African to occupy the position.

Producing a Global Product Using Local Resources

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he May edition of the Filmmakers' Forum organised by the GTBank Nollywood Studies Centre has taken place. The guest, Mr. Joseph-Philip Kalu Joshua Philip Okeafor with a guest Okeafor, the CEO of Loud Thunder Media, spoke on “Nollywood and the Challenge of Excellence: Producing a Global Product using Local Resources.” Mr. Okeafor focused on the challenges of producing a Nigerian film of global standards given the existing limitations. However, he was of the opinion that, with sufficient resourcefulness, it is possible to overcome many of the handicaps.

Using the film, Spirit of the Assassin, which he codirected, as a case in point, he gave various examples of how difficult and ordinarily expensive effects were achieved with solely local resources. He treated the audience to behind the scenes clips of the making of the film to illustrate his points.

Mr. Okeafor acknowledged that the crew had to surmount various difficulties in different moments in the effort to attain the desired quality. But the effort, he noted, has paid off given the good reviews that the film has received in South Africa and Ghana, where it has been released. The Nigerian release is scheduled for later this year.

The Pro-Chancellor of PanAtlantic University, Dr. Christopher Kolade, has presented the published compilation of lectures delivered by him over the years. The three volume work, titled Kolade's Canons, was edited by Mr. Richard Ikiebe. The proceeds from the sale of the books are destined for Kolade's Scholars, an initiative of the University and the Christopher Kolade Foundation to grant scholarships to deserving but indigent undergraduate students at the PanAtlantic University.

Prof. James Tsaaior has presented papers in a conference on "The Media and the Spectacular/Ordinary/Contested City," in Helsinki, Finland, and a conference on Mobile Telephony, in Jyvaskyla. His papers were on the 'Politics of Representation of the Embodied Subject in Nollywood Films set in Lagos' and 'Mobile Telephony and the Communication of Political Resistance in a Postcolonial State (Nigeria),’ respectively.

SMC Launches New Certificate Course in Documentary Filmmaking

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he School of Media and Communication has introduced a new certificate course in documentary filmmaking.

The Certificate Course in Documentary Film Production is a practicecentred programme primarily aimed at imparting the basic skills required for working with the TV/video documentary form. Documentary filmmaking is seen as an important support skill for the growing film and home video industry, and it is expected that graduates of the programme will contribute towards meeting the huge need that exists in this area in Nigeria and Africa at large.

The course will be supervised for the most part by experts from Goldsmiths, University of London. It is expected that by the end of the programme, the participants will be able to apply a thorough understanding of inter-related production practices to the making of an original screen documentary suitable for public exhibition.

The first run of the Certificate Course in Documentary Film Production will take place from June 18 to August 2, 2013.

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Research Notes: The Evolution of the Internet Continued from the last issue

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rucker's five most important questions bring me to an issue that most of us do not have time for – research. As people engaged in the business of news and information, it is ironic that we should lack information about ourselves, our readers, listeners, viewers, and about our trade. We make guesses and extrapolate figures from the past, almost without thinking of the implications.

Closely linked to poor or nonexistent research is our dim sense of history. In speaking with many members of our profession, I have found, to my amazement, that many do not know, for instance, that S. L. Akintola, the man under whose administration Premier Hotel was commissioned, was a highly regarded journalist, who trained at London's Fleet Street, before he became a lawyer and politician. Chief Akintola was reputedly one of the best editorial writers in the history of Nigerian journalism. Sadly, not much is known about his career as a journalist. In a few years, we would have forgotten about Chief Tony Enahoro – not Peter Enahoro – who became an editor at 21, and whose only profession, before he became a politician, was journalism.

The Need for Locally Written Books Still related to research is the absence of books that are relevant to our situation. We are over-dependent on books from other lands. Without ignoring the fact that we are not isolated on an island, in a world of our own, we must have more homegrown theorists and theories, precepts and concepts, along with our own narratives. Jose's book, Walking the Tight Rope, is a classic and ought to be reprinted; Fred Omu's landmark research work is out of print.

The books of Coker (no matter its faults), Sam Epelle, Tony Momoh and Tunji Oseni, Dayo Duyile, and many others ought to have been repackaged and made available to younger generations of journalists. And the Editors’ Guild can make money from these types of books – books that in their turn will help in the advancement of our profession.

Training is no longer optional Edward D. Miller of the Newsroom Leadership Group said, “Most editors have had little management training.

We got our nobs because we were good at something else – reporting… Then one day, we became managers and were asked to master an entirely different discipline.”

As I speak to journalists, practitioners and leaders in the industry, I am amazed at the sheer number of journalists that are self-educated.

While this is highly commendable, it has its downside: there is a limit to how much you can teach yourself. Bankers are particularly rigorous about staff development.

Doing new things in new ways will require learning at all levels of our practice. Training is no longer an option, but it must be strategic. It must be thoughtfully laid out, be systematic, and be done… now. That is the reasoning behind the Centre for Leadership in Journalism (CLeJ), a collaboration between the profession, the School of Media and Communication, and the business community.

Multimedia literacy “Without multimedia literacy by journalists, emerging newsrooms cannot do a good job for the digital distribution channels that have already outpaced and outstripped traditional media platform” (McAdams).

The convergent newsroom demands that we choose and use from all seven media types: video, text, photo, audio, audio slideshow, data, graphics.

Video-journalism is in.

The New York Times, about two years ago, had 12 video journalists, from television and documentary backgrounds. The video unit regularly produces documentaries to go along with print pieces that run in the newspaper. The paper, last year, hired Thompson, the retiring Director General of the BBC, as its new CEO. This is the line that we must take, and as we speak, the CLeJ has a number of training programmes lined up for

journalists, this year.

– A bank has just agreed to sponsor 20 journalists for 30 days, spread across four months. We hope the training will take place in April.

– We have a firm word from an oil and gas producing company to train journalists in that area of writing and reporting.

– Another financial institution has agreed to sponsor working finance and economic journalists.

– We are in the conclusive state of a negotiation with a foremost financial body that will retrain editors to upgrade their skills – A former CEO and Chairman of a multinational company has undertaken to sponsor 15 journalists for an investigative reporting course. We are still working on the details.

– Before the end of May, we intend to have an Editors' one-day forum on “Life After the Editor's Chair.”

All these and more are some of the things that the CLeJ is up to.

We are looking for sponsors who will assist us to bring retired or retiring journalists into the School as fellows. We have a lot of relevant research projects in our kitty for which we are searching for fellows and sponsors. One of such projects is the Nigerian Media Project: 75 years of Nigerian History (19352010), for which we have the PAU and the Guild to thank for the token seed money to jump start it.

[This is the way to the future: a constant training and retraining in order to equip oneself to meet constantly changing needs.]

This is the concluding part of this piece, which was presented as the keynote address at the 2013 National Convention of the Nigerian Guild of Editors. It is worthwhile pointing out that some of the activities mentioned in this address, which were to be organised by the Centre for Leadership in Journalism, have since taken place.

Richard O. Ikiebe is a Senior Fellow of the School of Media and Communication, PanAtlantic University, and the Director of the SMC’s Centre for Leadership in Journalism (CLeJ).