The United State Consulate in Lagos, Nigeria has held a one-day capacity building workshop for select financial journalists in Lagos.
The training was aimed at enhancing the capacity of financial journalists in the use of data and the interpretation of financial statement of corporate organisations as well as tracking government’s expenditure.
The training had participants from Daily Trust, Leadership, Thisday, The Sun, Vanguard, Tribune, Premium Times, The Cable, Punch, Businessday, New Telegraph and a host of broadcast media based in Lagos
The Consular General, F. John Bray, in his brief remark at the opening, said the biggest concern the US has about Nigeria is demographics.
“We hear about these growth in the economy, and the growth in the population figures and the key question is: where are the jobs going to come from to sustain the growth?”
He said the key to answering this question is financial reporting.
“You have to know more, understand the issues and be smarter than others,” he said.
He noted that being a journalist is inherently difficult because everybody wants their sides of the story to be told, adding that “it comes down to something simple, it’s the numbers. The numbers don’t lie.”
He said it is important for Africa to get the story out.
Bismark Rewane, frontline Economist who anchored the training on understanding financial reports and the budget, reminded the participants that readers of their content possess a level of sophistication, hence the need to improve.
He said: “the aggregate demand for good governance is rising and the supply of good governance will also rise. You cannot hide prosperity and people cannot pretend to be happy when they are not.”
He charged the participants to tell truth to power, adding that when a report is wrongly slanted, people will see through it in a short while and that would erode the confidence of the news medium.
Business intelligence and Market Research analyst, Kirk Leigh also had session on interpreting company’s financial statement, and using unconventional ways of facts-checking.