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Next Gen Internship Programme

Diary of a Next Gen Intern: Expanding My Skills in the Second Month

It’s been two months since I started interning at the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) as a participant in the Next Gen Internship programme. In this second month, I’ve had the opportunity to handle more challenging tasks that offered me growth opportunities. From writing a report that revolved around period poverty to gathering and visualising data, joining the organising team for a campus journalism training, editing a news report, and developing guiding questions for a panel, I have made much more progress in my learning journey.

 I began the month by completing a period poverty report that I had started earlier. The story, which provided evidence on how inflation has worsened period poverty, focused on the experiences of females in tertiary institutions. The confidential manner with which most females approach period conversations made it difficult for me to get willing sources and I almost changed my intended sources before someone reached out to share her story. This experience reiterated the importance of persistence in the sourcing stage of news reporting.

Source gathering was not the only challenge I encountered with this task. I had to incorporate data on Nigeria’s headline inflation rate and pad price increase over the past year. The process of gathering this data stretched my abilities as I had to conduct a market survey to gather data on the pad price increase and then scrape through different publications from the National Bureau of Statistics to obtain accurate inflation data. That was my first time conducting a market survey for a news report.

After gathering the data, I proceeded to visualise the data on inflation rates and pads price hikes using Datawrapper and Infogram and had to check through data visualisation samples from other reports to choose the tool that would best present the data in a simple and easily understandable format. These processes reignited my enthusiasm for data journalism and prompted me to pick up my data journalism lessons where I left off.

I also attempted programme-related tasks. I assisted with the preparation process for the University of Maiduguri Campus Journalism Clinic, where I helped sort applications and carefully prepared the administrative and learning materials to be taken along by the team. After the training, I edited a report written by some of the participants about the journalism clinic. Editing the report gave me an insight into the effort that editors exert to transform copies, especially those from rookie journalists, into well-presented reports.

Another notable challenge this month was crafting guiding questions, under the supervision of Osaruonamen Ibizugbe, the Project Officer for the Media in Gender Project at CJID, for two panel discussions that were hosted at the CJID Media and Development Conference’24. I had to read through the panel guides to have a clear grasp of the objectives and then research the panellists’ profiles to ensure that every question was relevant to the panel’s objective and assigned to the panellist with the appropriate expertise.

Another highlight of my second month was participating in the DUBAWA Week for Truth’s outreach where the Abuja’s DUBAWA team sensitised secondary school students on information disorder and fact-checking skills. The outreach helped me bond better with other colleagues while I also got the reminder to always fact-check information.

Summing this up, I would say the most exciting part of this internship is the opportunity to broaden my knowledge by learning and handling tasks that cut across different areas of interest from news reporting and editing to programme ideation, planning and implementation. I’m grateful for the past two months and eagerly anticipate what the third month holds. For a recap of my experiences in the first month, you can read: Next Gen Intern’s Diary: My First Month At CJID – Campus Reporter.

End note: Stella Adeniyi is a participant in the Next Gen/Campus Reporter 2024 Internship Programme. To read about her experiences during the first month of the internship, click here

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