PREMIUM TIMES to launch solutions-focused health reporting

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PREMIUM TIMES is set to initiate solutions-focused journalism around health, agriculture and nutrition, as well as small and medium scale industry issues, in Nigerian newsrooms, publisher of Nigeria’s leading investigative and data reporting news platform, Dapo Olorunyomi, has said.

“As we make this transition to the development gateway,” Mr. Olorunyomi announced in a statement on Sunday. “Our approach will be to provide substantive answers to problems through intensive and robust reporting, as opposed to story telling that focus merely on the issues themselves.

“Our first port of call will be the comprehensive acreage of healthcare reporting, as we give a new primacy to health issues and open up fresh vistas in the coverage and presentation of health care news.

“Health is getting our early attention because it is an underlying gauge of the human condition, and because the true development of our country will ultimately be determined by the health of our citizens.

“To this end we shall go beyond mainstream health services reporting that defines current patterns of media coverage, to give keen attention to issues of food and nutrition, sanitation, water, the environment, the context that helps change behaviour, as well as the socio-economic matrix that gives consequence to healthcare of citizens.

This vision is made possible, thanks to a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which will allow the Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism to access resources needed to better engage audiences across a broad and diverse platform, and with an enormous input of innovative and empowering civic technology tools, Mr. Olorunyomi said.

The solutions-based journalism transition gateway is part of the roll-out events to mark the five-year anniversary of PREMIUM TIMES.

“We expect this health reporting project to lead to increased citizens’ knowledge about health issues such as malaria, tuberculosis, infant and maternal mortality, water, nutrition and HIV/AIDS; and the various ways to deal with these ailments,” Mr. Olorunyomi said.

“One of the expected immediate results of the project is an increase in the capacity of journalists to gather data and report health and related development issues. The ultimate result will be the expansion of health information and education on better ways of combating infectious diseases and other related health issues.”