Gombe State Government has been called upon to urgently address the deplorable state of health facilities in the state which has negatively affected the Maternal Newborn Health of the State.
This was part of a communiqué issued at the end of a five day workshop on investigative journalism and evidence based reporting on maternal newborn health for journalists in Gombe State which ended over the weekend at Chartwell Suites Bauchi.
Organized by MamaYe Evidence for Action (E4A), the Journalists stated that the poor state of these health facilities in the State is posing a great danger to the well being of maternal and newborn health in Gombe State. It therefore called on the Government to urgently address the issue.
The Journalists, in the communiqué which was signed by Mr. Williams Attah of the National Mirror Newspaper lamented the low capacity of Journalists in the State in reporting as well as under-reporting of Maternal Newborn Health (MNH) issues.
While decrying the poor remuneration, irregular and outright non-payment of journalists’ salaries as negative tendencies affecting their performance especially in investigative reporting, the communiqué said Journalists in Gombe State need investigative reporting skills to follow up on MNH issues adding that it is important that the Journalists do more by becoming agents of change for MNH.
Ten participants from different media organizations in the State attended the workshop and were introduced to news and feature writing, interview techniques, basics of communication and investigative journalism and the use of technology and social media platforms for investigative reporting by the lead resource person, Mr. Olaide Shokunbi, the Media Advisor of MamaYe (E4A) and Mr. Morooph.
