Journalist Seeks Leadership Training Fund For Editors

The Director, School of Media and Communication, Pan Atlantic University, Lagos, Mr Richard Ikiebe, has urged the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) to establish a fund for management and leadership training for editors in media organisations.

Ikiebe, in a presentation at the 9th All Nigerian Editors Conference, in Asaba, Delta, recently, lamented that not many publishers and chief executive officers of media organisations had received training in management, leadership and media business.

According to him, the persons that will succeed in real management and leadership of media organisations are those not afraid of information technology and the intricacies of business.

He also charged the Guild to establish fellowship chairs for the middle class and retiring journalists to stimulate responsibility and professionalism in media practice.

Ikiebe, who is a renowned journalist,   said that 35 journalists, mainly women, were trained by the university, this year.

He added that the institution had also ran a course on leadership and governance for media practitioners within and outside the country and he called for donation of books on mass communication written by Nigerians and Africans and that there was a dearth of indigenous journalism books.

In his presentation on “Life After The Chair, The Editors’ Colloquium”, a media consultant, Mallam Garba Shehu, advised editors to cultivate the act of investment, especially in stocks, as “provision” for retirement.

He also recommended book writing for retiring editors as it was necessary for them to share their experiences while on the job noting that retirement would kill the editor. He urged editors to “plan well to live well while on the job so that they would be comfortable in retirement”.