The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) has restated its commitment to continuous editorial staff training to boost news writing and reportage proficiency for improved service delivery.
The agency made this known at its bi-weekly editorial training for the Lagos office on Wednesday.
The training session which was anchored by Dr Uche Anunne, a staff of the agency from the Abuja office, reiterated the need for the editorial staff to adopt excellence in their journalistic reportage.
Anunne also called for precision in news reporting, editing and publishing of news copy.
“We must be careful to confirm any report we are not sure about before we publish. We should report stories only based on confidence in the source or on authority,” Anunne said.
He also urged reporters, editors and controllers to study the agency’s style book regularly to avoid common errors found in the final news stories.
The facilitator also warned against embellishment of stories by reporters, overuse of titles as well as appropriate abbreviations for words used in a story.
Anunne called on the editorial staff to avoid common grammatical errors by reading through their copies before publishing.
On his part, the Head of NAN Lagos Office, Mr Ephraim Sheyin, urged the editorial staff to take training seriously and put to practice what they have learned.
“Reporters should always read their published copy so as not to repeat the mistakes they made before writing.
“There should be synergy between the controllers, editors and reporters.
“All reporters should put to practice what we have learnt at the training,” Sheyin said. (NAN)
