By Joy Obehi odigie
Amina Salihu, Deputy Director, MacArthur Foundation, has urged media owners to see investigative journalism as an ethical business where funds could be generated to sustain their activities.
Salihu made the call during a panel discussion on ‘Donor funding for Investigative journalism: How does investigative journalism live beyond intervention?’, at the 3rd Amplify In-depth Media Conference in Abuja on Saturday.
She said the Foundation had been doing the Nigerian project for about nine years with over 193 grants to organisations and would be winding up its activities in the country by 2024.
She, however, noted that “the media can not continue to depend on donor funding” saying that external funding was not sustainable.
“Speaking truths to power is worth investing in. The Civil Society Organisations and communities where the investigative story is coming from has to support the amplification of such stories.
“As we think of external funding, we should look inward to get internal funding and prioritise diversity of our revenue drive.
“Considerations should be given to the marketability, channel of distribution, and sustainability of investigative Journalism” She said.
Also, Dayo Aiyetan, Executive Director, International Centre for Investigative Reporting, said that there was the need to produce news as a business product.
Aiyetan emphasized the role of critical reporting in the process of making news saleable, noting that patronage would be hinged on truth and audience trust.
“Donor funding is not sustainable, and only those media houses that have their foundation on critical reporting will survive.
“We need to see news as a product that we can sell but putting in mind the ethical considerations. Different technology platforms make good money from selling news materials that they don’t produce.
“So the media, who is in charge of gathering and producing the news items, should make use of technology to make them into sellable products”, he said.
The two day conference was organised by the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism.
