Award winner looks forward to widening his world-view of journalism

Kunle Falayi comes to the 2014 Thomson Foundation summer course after winning three awards at the Promasidor Quill Awards. The Punch Nigeria correspondent tells Rosie Niven about his hopes for the course.

Kunle was declared the overall winner of the Quill awards after winning in two categories. As part of the prize, he will attend the four-week multi-media journalism-training course with the Thomson Foundation, followed by a week-long placement with a prominent London-based news organisation.

Kunle won the award for a three-part report about the poor state of infrastructure in public schools in Lagos, Nigeria's most developed state.

One of its most shocking findings was the lack of classroom furniture, with students forced to sit on the floor.

Even though the Lagos State authorities initially dismissed our report as mere exaggeration, they were later forced to conduct an audit of the affected schools and supply them with new furniture, reveals Kunle.

Kunle is no stranger to examining hard-hitting issues. His other award was for a two-part report about children who are the victims of incest, which he says inspired great debate across Nigeria's broadcast media.

Satisfaction Knowing that my report might have reawakened people's awareness about this malaise in Nigerian society actually gave me a lot of satisfaction, he says.

While Kunle has already has strong credentials as an investigative journalist working on Punch's crime beat, he believes the Thomson Foundation summer course can develop these skills further.

He also hopes to gain more experience of multimedia platforms. I don't think I would be a complete journalist without some level of expertise in different platforms, he says.

Kunle says that social media has greatly changed the media landscape in Nigeria, with what he describes as the fast food version of conventional media setting the pace.

Now media houses are being forced to reinvent more creative ways of reaching their readers and listeners faster.

But the most important change is the fact that there is more freedom of expression in society.

While Nigerian media has embraced social platforms known for their speed and brevity, Punch Nigeria's newspapers have also built a reputation for impactful investigative journalism.

An example of this was Punch's 2012 investigation into into a health scandal on an upmarket Lagos estate. The journalist behind the story, Toyosi Ogunseye, went on to be selected as a finalist in the Thomson Foundation young journalist award and was recently named a winner of the prestigious Knight International Journalism award.

Excellence in journalism Kunle says that Punch Nigeria's emphasis on excellence in journalism is motivated by a desire to stay ahead of the competition. Most importantly, the company puts it upon itself to always be on the side of the general public, he adds.

It also allows individual initiatives that would enhance its excellence to flourish. I believe this is why its journalists excel as well.

With less than two months to go until the start of the summer course, Kunle says he is looking forward to learning from the other participating journalists and the trainers

I believe the summer course with Thomson Foundation is going to open up my hitherto constricted world-view about journalism. I also hope to acquire skills that would be useful to me beyond journalism.

I don't believe I'm going to remain the same after my Thomson Foundation training.

LINK:	http://www.thomsonfoundation.org/news-and-features/2014/06/25/award-wi...
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