The road to SABRE Awards by Funsho Aina
It’s amazing how every day, new technologies keep joining the global conversation, most especially in the information dissemination space. With the current level of advancement, 1996, the year I started my first job as a journalist, seems prehistoric. It is hard to believe that back then, our only work tools were a large dose of optimism, pen and paper or what we called ‘off-cuts’ (roughly cut A4-size papers from huge reams of newsprint). A sizable number had ‘midgets’ (micro tape recorders) or the Sony Walkman-type tape recorders, for interviews. I did not know of any reporter who had a PC or a laptop. After we finished writing our stories in long-hand, we gave the sheaf of papers to typesetters who would type and print out for the sub-editors to knock into readable copies. The internet was just an abstract concept you read about in foreign newspapers or magazines. We didn’t even have email addresses.
However, all this would change a few short years after as many newsrooms in Nigeria became computerised, becoming mandatory for journalists to upskill. Very soon, laptops became essential working tools. The introduction of GSM telephony in 2001 totally revolutionised the media space, and in subsequent years, leading to convergence where phones and other hand-held devices integrated two or more technologies ranging from broadcasting, telecommunications and computing – all enabled by internet connectivity. But as cutting-edge as that sounded, it seems ancient now seeing that we now live in a world of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented and Virtual Reality, with the current rave being ChatGPT, which if care is not taken may render billions jobless in the not-too-distant future.
According to TechTarget, “ChatGPT is an AI chatbot that uses natural language processing to create humanlike conversational dialogue. The language model can respond to questions and compose various written content (poetry, speeches, songs), including articles, social media posts, essays, code and emails.” The software is unbelievably versatile – it can write and debug computer programmes and simulate whole chat rooms. As a matter of fact, it is so smart that it has been banned in some universities and schools because of plagiarism concerns.
Afenifere and the Yoruba interest
I recently watched a video produced by the Daily Mirror of UK, highlighting the radical advancement and potential dangers of AI. In it was a picture of the Pope wearing a white puffy jacket! There was another seemingly showing how Donald Trump was being manhandled while appearing to resist arrest in New York. But the one that totally beat me hollow was the image of the French President, Emmanuel Macron, seen trying to outrun angry rioters in Paris as they were being tear-gassed by riot policemen! In reality, none of these happened but the pictures looked perfectly real, totally devoid of the usual tell-tale signs of being photoshopped. They were all created by AI, which means the line between reality and illusion can now easily be blurred, thereby becoming harder and harder to identify what’s real or fake. AI can situate people in circumstances where they were not, and vice versa – almost like putting someone in a murder scene in London when they never left Ghana for instance. Surely, that’s very dangerous stuff.
According to Rijul Gupta, the tech entrepreneur founder of ‘Deep Media,’ a company striving to create ethical AI tools, the current capabilities of Chat GPT are the signs of what lies ahead. He said these are just texts and images, “but very soon not only will the Pope be seen wearing a puffy jacket, there will be a video of him breakdancing in it – fully realistic.” In short, the fabric of truth and reality is changing, making truth and falsehood relative.
However, while we leave Rijul Gupta and other capable minds in Silicon Valley and other tech hubs, to create ethical AI that would save our world from itself, I have been pondering where the Nigerian media sit in this digital bubble.
State of play in Nigeria…
Without gainsaying, the media, as we have anywhere in the world, plays a very critical role in the socio-political and economic development of a society. It is a Public Trust, holding those in authority accountable, and serving as a societal watchdog. In developing countries like Nigeria, the media’s role is even more critical because of weak civic organs, which often makes the line between reporting and advocacy blurry for journalists. Steeped in a long tradition of media practice by dedicated heads and hands, who never lost sight of the rich history of the profession, with the founding of the first newspaper in Nigeria in 1859, the ‘Iwe Irohin’ by Rev. Henry Townsend; a tradition forged in the crucible of nationalism and the struggle for Nigeria’s independence as championed by the Pen Fraternity of Ernest Sisei Ikoli, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Herbert Macaulay and much later, Alhaji Babatunde Jose; journalism in Nigeria has always been vibrant.
But sadly, with modernity comes an erosion of the ethos of the profession. Most times, what we have these days is ‘the media without journalism.’ There’s a high birthrate but short life expectancy of publications/platforms in the industry. The Nigerian media space is in a state of flux where it is difficult to grow and retain talent; invest in the future and institute good corporate governance culture to drive practice. Those in doubt should do a comparative analysis of newspapers across all tiers today. This will show that most publish the same government and corporate press releases and event photos – no more scoops; no more exclusives for which leading lights like Gbolabo Ogunsanwo, Dele Giwa et al were renowned.
Practitioners are hardly to blame because they are not well-motivated or totally demotivated. This is what happens when media owners owe people for months in salaries and other entitlements; when there are no opportunities or clear paths for career advancement, training, capacity building and self-improvement. All these are on one hand, on the other is how the Nigerian media can survive in the age of Artificial Intelligence as described in the opening paragraphs. The only way is to invest in technology; ensure quality content (original pieces and investigative stories) as well as talent development. The polar opposites of all these, or a dystopia of sorts, is what we presently have in the country.
But be that as it may, there is a growing population of young and enterprising media practitioners who are very comfortable with technology; they recognize the fact that ‘content is king;’ they understand the vast possibilities of digital communications, and are determined to leverage it to scale the limitations of their society and peculiar circumstances.
In steps MTN Media Innovation Programme (MIP)…
At MTN, we recognize this demographic and how they crave applied technology to attain journalistic excellence, catch up with global trends and generally improve their storytelling techniques. Our strategic intent is to drive leading digital solutions for Nigeria’s progress guided by the principle of shared value which enables shared prosperity. That is why we are constantly looking for opportunities and possibilities, to make a positive and sustainable impact. We are committed to using our technology and assets to help build a better tomorrow. So in furtherance of our efforts at supporting a critical society grouping, in 2022, we started what we called MTN Media Innovation Programme (MIP) in partnership with the Pan-Atlantic University (PAU), Lagos.
MIP is a fellowship for journalists (media practitioners across the entire spectrum, including social media), and it is designed to help them build capacity at both professional and business levels. It is delivered over a six-month period as a certificate course. It combines theoretical rigour with practical workshops to enhance the knowledge and skills of participants in the areas of communications, technology, media effects, writing/reporting and general business management.
MIP has a transforming potential of empowering media practitioners to do their job better and driving innovation that will lead to building the much-needed sustainability in the industry. As we all know, innovation drives change and builds new approaches to problem-solving and solution-oriented media practice for the benefit of humanity. And apart from equipping the media stakeholders with the skills to adapt to the changing realities that guarantee career and financial success, we also thought to add international exposure to the training which will broaden the scope of the participants. To this end, MIP includes a study visit to the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa. And aside 2022, the pilot phase of the programme will also run in 2023 and 2024, and hopefully, will attain a premium fellowship in the same league as the Yale Fellowship or Desmond Tutu Fellowship.
Anyway, in 2022, 20 journalists were eventually selected across different media platforms spread across all geo-political zones in the country. In my role as MTN’s sole interface with the media, I led the team that successfully initiated and executed the MIP. Apart from that, I was also a member of the faculty, handling sessions on Corporate Communications Management strategies. Determined to make a positive and sustainable impact, the inaugural intervention was themed: ‘Enabling accelerated transformation.’ To achieve our targeted results, the team facilitated the needed structured sessions with the faculty from the School of Media & Communications, PAU; renowned media professionals (Businessday, Bloomberg, BBC, Punch, Premium Times etc); network providers and MTN leadership.
We coordinated MTN facility visits – experience centres, subsea landing cable station, HQ; facilitated 5G demonstration sessions hosted by Huawei; ensured study visit to Wits University, South Africa as well as the MTN Group head office – Y’ello Innovation Centre. At the end of the day, and after six months of intensive training, the fellows had been taught how to take advantage of existing legitimate means to monetize their skills in a fast-changing media space. This was done through sessions with media disruptors who had successfully built media businesses leveraging technology. Both documentary and anecdotal pieces of evidence attest to the empowering effect of the intervention; showing marked improvements in the way beneficiaries do their jobs. They had developed writing and reporting skills for the digital age while exploring deep insights into the telecoms and ICT landscape in Nigeria. They had clearly understood the need for innovation in the media space while exploring the changing landscape propelled by ICT.
It is worthy of note that the MTN MIP is the first of its kind in Nigeria – no other corporate has ever invested so much in sustainable and far-reaching capacity building for journalists where intended outcomes can be successfully tracked.
Looking back at what we had achieved, we decided to seek international validation for an earlier recognition we got for MIP when the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) awarded me the trophy of the ‘Most Influential PR Professional in Nigeria for 2022,’ by now applying for the SABRES, which is the biggest PR recognition platform in the world.
Awarded since 2013, the SABRE IN2 awards recognise excellent work that highlight the expanding scope of the PR profession, from content creation to the evaluation process using data and analytics to inform, enhance and evaluate campaign successes across the globe.
The rest as they say is history as I won in the brand category of ‘Innovator of the Year’ at the 2023 IN2 SABRE awards, which was held at the PRovoke EMEA Summit in Gesellschaftshaus Palmengarten Frankfurt, Germany on Thursday March 23, 2023.
Aina is Senior External Relations Manager, MTN Nigeria
