The Oxford Climate Journalism Network is aimed to address some of the challenges journalists face when reporting on climate change.
The head of the Standards Desk of PREMIUM TIMES, Tosin Omoniyi, has been selected for the Oxford Climate Journalism Network (OCJN) fellowship.
The senior assistant editor is one of the hundred participants who were picked to join the maiden network, a quarter of them from Africa, with others picked from the U.S., Lebanon, Czech Republic, Poland, Argentina, China, the UK, Nepal, Denmark, Philippines, among other nations.
The Oxford Climate Journalism Network is aimed to address some of the challenges journalists face when reporting on climate change and help editors and news media executives develop their approach to these issues, organisers said.
“It will look at how to expand coverage across different verticals, identify reliable data sources, understand complex issues and rethink beat reporting, to ensure that an understanding of environmental issues permeates all areas of the newsroom,” a statement added.
Mr Omoniyi will benefit from the six-month-long online courses which will also include leadership programmes for senior editors like himself as well as original academic research to track how people relate to climate change news in a range of countries.
The OCJN is a new programme at the Reuters Institute for the study of journalism at the University of Oxford.
The training is expected to be mostly online but with the possibility of physical ones in the future, organisers said.
Organisers said the network is aimed at strengthening the competence of participating journalists and their organisations “to cover climate change, not as an isolated topic, but as something that intersects with many other aspects of our lives and societies.”
This will be done by creating unique access to a network of “world-leading experts, professional forums for exchanging ideas with peers, and by connecting members with relevant scientists and research, the network will help reporters and editors think through the professional, organisational, and ethical questions journalism faces when it comes to climate coverage.”
Funded for the first year by a £477,170 grant from the European Climate Foundation (ECF), the project is led by two co-founders, the Reuters Institute’s deputy director, Meera Selva, and visiting fellow and advisory board member, Wolfgang Blau.
At other times, Mr Omoniyi had worked in different editorial capacities at Leadership, Daily Trust, Nigerian Newsworld and the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR).
He has written hundreds of solution-driven and impactful development reports on rural communities across Nigeria while actively on the field as a reporter.
He is a member of the African Editors Forum, the International Centre for Journalists (ICFJ) network, the UN-supported Media and Information Literacy Coalition of Nigeria (MILCON) and other professional groups.
A lover of arts, when Mr Omoniyi is not writing, he hones his skill in stage performance.