Bolstering Nigerian Election Reporting

As the dust settles on the 2011 elections in Nigeria, African Media Matters talks to those involved in IWPR’s innovative election reporting programme, set up to boost coverage of the poll and promote balanced, accurate journalism across the country. We hear from the Nigerian Union of Journalists about the challenges facing its members and from IWPR’s Veronica Oakeshott on how these were addressed through training workshops and story production. Also British journalism professor Ivor Gaber and Lanre Arogundade, the director of the Lagos-based International Press Centre, discuss the programme’s election-related news service, Nigerian Election News Report, which assisted participants with their reporting of the ballot and consider the role the initiative can play in the future.