By Dan
Agbese
Nov 26 2017
PHOTO: AFP / STRINGER
Borno State : Houses Ravaged by the Boko Haram Attacks.
There is a silent majority
in our rural communities throughout the country. How much reporting are our
news media doing on these communities? How much of their economic and social
problems do we know? Indeed, do we know them?
None of us would be
proud of the answers to these questions. Community reporting is not attractive
to reporters. It lacks glamour. The path to journalistic success and fortune
does not cut through the isolated rural communities. Still, I suggest we bestir
ourselves and take up the challenges of community reporting so we can bring our
rural communities in from the cold. It would be good for the health of national
development.
The focus of community
reporting is to give our rural communities human faces and human voices. The
first rule in community reporting is for the reporter to know the community he
wishes to report on. We have two broadly distinct communities - urban and
rural. As the name implies, the urban communities live in our towns and cities
and the rural communities live in the rural areas.
