The Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) on Tuesday 9 August 2022 received a team from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation at its office in Lagos. The Gates Foundation supports WSCIJ on the Report Women! News and Newsroom Engagement project to address the dearth of women in the news and newsroom.
Alex Jakana, Programme Officer, Global Media Partnership; Ingrid Kopp, a technical assistant; Katja Schiller Nwator, Lead, Policy and Advocacy, Gender, Health and Agriculture; and Fatima Alkali, Senior Communications Officer, represented the Gates Foundation. Alex was physically present at the WSCIJ office as others joined virtually. Read more
Oge Ezeobiorah, Programme Officer at WSCIJ, walked the Gates Foundation team through the Report Women! News and Newsroom Engagement project. She shared details of the project activities and the progress made since its inception. According to her, the male-female ratio of leadership in 84 media houses has been analysed; over 500 profiles of women experts across seven sectors collated; and the flagship programmes of 13 media organisations have been monitored, among others. Speaking on the Champion Building component of the project, Ezeobiorah stated that it had onboarded 11 Report Women! Fellows who are working on nine (9) investigative stories and six (6) leadership projects.
As feedback to the project updates, Jakana advised that the experts’ source guide should also feature female sources in the law sector given its importance to the seven others being worked on – business and economy, politics and governance, health and science education, security, media, and agriculture. He emphasised the need to ensure the privacy of female professionals to be featured and lauded WSCIJ for the project status shared.
Motunrayo Alaka, Executive Director/CEO, WSCIJ, thanked Jakana and the Gates Team for the support it received for the Report Women! News and Newsroom Engagement project and for taking the time to visit the centre. Other WSCIJ team members with Alaka were Samson Ademola, Programme and Research Officer; Yakubu Afuye, IT Officer; Chiamaka Onwuegbunam and Iretomiwa Dele-Yusuff, both assistant Programme Officers.
