TECH-U VC asks media to contribute to national dev’t
Vice Chancellor of First Technical University (Tech-U) Ibadan, Professor Ayobami Salami, has called on the mass media to be more vibrant and focused on setting the right agenda for development. A statement by the university’s spokesman, Femi Babatunde, said Salami stated this while speaking as special guest at the 2018 Press Week of the Nigeria […]
From Left: Mr. Olaoluwa Ajayi, Chairman, Oyo Correspondents’ Chapel, Professor Ayobami Salami, Vice Chancellor, Tech-U, Ibadan and His Royal Majesty, Senator Lekan Balogun.
Vice Chancellor of First Technical University (Tech-U) Ibadan, Professor Ayobami Salami, has called on the mass media to be more vibrant and focused on setting the right agenda for development.
A statement by the university’s spokesman, Femi Babatunde, said Salami stated this while speaking as special guest at the 2018 Press Week of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Correspondents’ Chapel, Oyo State Chapter on ‘Promoting Professionalism and Good Governance.’
He said journalists were supposed to bring to limelight, issues crucial to national growth.
He said, “You would agree with me that, with the deluge of developmental challenges confronting the nation, the media, as the fourth estate of the realm, occupies a strategic position in helping the nation negotiate a better deal.
“Like never before, it is certain that the media needs to be more vibrant and focused on setting the right agenda for development.”
Salami said apart from going through a time of huge transformation, media development was facing major challenges including burdening cost of news production, ethical crisis, declining readership, revolutionary incursion of the online media, increasing threats to the lives of journalists and proliferation of fake news.
He however said Nigerian media was gifted with some of the brightest and most courageous journalists on the continent. “Therefore, I expect that the media would re-enact its heroic wand – not only to rescue the nation at such a time like this, but to also reinvent its practice,” he added
Speaking on TECH-U, Salami stated that the university was conceived to provide functional, skill-oriented education to bridge the widening gap between graduates from tertiary institutions and the needs of the society, particularly the employing organisations.`