…set to train 45 journalists on investigative health care reporting
The Executive Director of the International Press Centre (IPC), Mr. Lanre Arogundade, has charged the Media on the need to enhance investigative efforts in the reporting of accountability issues in health care service delivery.
Arogundade gave this charge Monday; following the release of its survey report on coverage of health issues.
The one-month survey was carried out using four randomly selected Nigerian newspapers – The Punch, Daily Sun, Vanguard and Premium Times for the month of December 2020.
IPC said the random selection for the survey was necessary in order to have baseline information on the state of media reporting of health issues ahead of the training of 45 Nigerian journalists on accountability and impactful reporting of the Health Sector from this month.
Analysing the report the Executive Director said: “It is good that the concerned newspapers gave robust coverage to health issues particularly the COVID-19 pandemic but there were noticeable gaps in such areas as prominence and sources.
“The fact that COVID-19 was the most covered issue during the period probably explains why majority of the reports were derived from events, press releases and press conferences, but what we want to see is more investigative efforts in the reporting of accountability issues in health care service delivery.”
According to him, the outcome of the monitoring will now be factored into the capacity building programme planned for print, broadcast and online journalists in the South-south, South-west and South-east geo-political zones of the Country.
“It is worth reiterating that the baseline survey and the planned trainings are part of the six-month ‘Media in Health Care Accountability Project (MeHCAP) being implemented by IPC with the support of the US Consulate General in Lagos,” Arogundade added.
According to him, this is within the context of a strategic initiative of building and rebuilding the capacity of the media to serve as effective catalysts of fundamental health care reforms following the weaknesses in the system exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“All we seek to do is to encourage investigative and community-driven health reporting initiatives to ensure the emergence of functional hospitals and other health care facilities which can only happen if we have the next generation of investigative health journalists whose reporting would be data, fact and solution-driven,” he stated.
The summary of the outcome of the one-month survey showed that while the specific issue of COVID-19 accounted for 65.7 per cent of the relevant reports, ’maternal health’’ had 5.3 per cent; ‘’malaria/typhoid,’’ 3 per cent and ‘’diabetes’’ 2.4 per cent . Coverage of ‘’Cancer’’ was 2 per cent; ‘’public health’’, 0.9 per cent; ‘’mental health,’’ 0.48 per cent and ‘’other viral infections,’’ 0.48 per cent.
In terms of prominence, majority of the reports were published on the inside page (79 per cent) followed by the front page (7.3 per cent) and editorial page (3.7 per cent).
The context of the events were “events coverage” (32.2 per cent), “press release” (31 per cent,) and “press conference” (12.6 per cent) whereas “investigations’’ accounted for 13 per cent and interviews (10.7 per cent).
Most of the sources used were ‘’Government officials’’ (28.2 per cent); ‘’Health Professionals’’, (23.2 per cent); ‘’Health Institutions/Authorities’’ as sources accounted for (11 per cent); ‘’Professional Bodies,’’ (5.35 per cent); ‘’Development/Donor community’’ and ‘’CSOs’’ (5 per cent each); ‘’Foreign health institutions’’, (4.6 per cent); ‘’Citizens’’, (4 per cent,) and ‘’Other Professionals’’ (0.36 per cent,). The category “Others” was 13.2 per cent.
Photo caption:
Lanre Arogundade, ED, IPC
