She said their work differs across each intelligence team subset, which can be separated based on the users they serve. There has been a lot of hard work involved, tears and massive wins.”Īfolabi currently oversees the news output and works in the newsroom’s intelligence team. “Climbing to the top of anything in life takes grit. “I’ve always kept my eyes open for opportunities to grow,” she said. She said the programme made a difference in terms of being considered for her current role and of preparing her for a leadership position. “Aside from writing on topics that I’m passionate about such as personal to public finance, infrastructure and development, I manage the newsroom’s editorial calendar.” “I think of my role as the operations manager of the newsroom,” she said. She said her position is an opportunity to collaborate effectively with teams in the entire group so that they can create the best information product for readers. In February 2020, Afolabi was appointed as the Deputy Editor of Stears Business. “I wanted my writing to be relevant, meaningful and different from the regular reports that defined about 70% of my output before the fellowship.”ĭuring her time in Oxford, Afolabi said she discovered her strength was in writing long-form, data-driven pieces which give readers more context and knowledge of the world around them. “So when I saw that Stears would allow me to do what I wanted and more, I applied for a role and thankfully, I got it,” she said. “From the exposure of world-class journalism and networking with other top journalists from around the world during the fellowship, I knew I no longer wanted to do business journalism the way I had been exposed back in Nigeria,” she said. At the event, Afolabi met one of the co-founders at Stears Business, a Nigerian media outlet with a focus on business, economy and politics. She attended an interactive session organised by the Institute which had members of the larger University of Oxford community in attendance. In 2019, Afolabi was selected for the Reuters Institute’s Journalist Fellowship Programme. “I am grateful that growth and promotions have come with it.” “It’s a journey of hard work and perseverance,” she said. When the paper was in its revamping stages, she accepted an offer to start writing about the stock market. She worked there as a content manager for several years. The first offer she got was at Daily Times, Nigeria’s oldest newspaper. After she finished her bachelors degree in economics, she needed to land a job. A business editorĪdesola Afolabi started her journalism career by sheer luck. Here’s a portrait of some of these pioneering women who are changing the Nigerian journalism today. At the time of this writing, more than a dozen women journalists hold leadership positions in newsrooms or have launched their own news outlets. But Nigerian women journalists are starting to change this narrative and closing the gender imbalances. A 2017 survey showed a huge leadership gender gap in the country’s newsrooms, with a 10 to 2 ratio in favour of men in some cases. Nigeria still has a male-dominated media industry.
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