By Kelvin Ololo
The Chairman, Cross River State Council of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Mr. Victor Dan Udu, has decried the poor welfare of Media practitioners in the State.
Speaking over the phone on “The Dialogue With Agba Jalingo”, the NUJ Chairman inferred emphatically that Journalists welfare had been neglected and not given adequate attention.
His words: “Talking about the welfare of Journalists, I will say that enough is not being done. But we also have a part to play in this regard.”
Stating further on the need to share one’s health status, he said: “One of the problem we are having is not being able to open up to ourselves, it has to do with our own attitude as journalist, when we have health challenges we don’t keep it, because we need help.
“So, one of the problem we are having is because we have not been able to open up to ourselves and said okey! this is my problem, so that there can be timely intervention. We have a problem, let journalists themselves open up and tell the world what their problems are so that they can be tackled.”
Other guests on the program (live in the studio), Mr. Judex Okoro, Correspondence Chapel Chairman who is also The Sun Newspaper State Correspondent and Mr. Hope Obeten, Chairman Association of Cross River Online Journalists (ACROJ) and Publisher of Calabar Blog also shared their thoughts on issues faced in the field.
The challenges they raised range from harassment by Government Officials, withholding information from the Press, political influence from Proprietors, lack of training and retraining as well as poor payment and virtually no insurance which they said leads to brown envelop journalism and less productivity.
The Chief Press Secretary to the Cross River State Governor, Mr. Christian Ita according to the Production Team of the weekly radio program didn’t take and return calls to him as well as SMS inviting him to be a guest of the Episode 146.
His Deputy, Mr. Linus Obogo was also contacted, he accepted but couldn’t join the program because he driving back to Calabar.