Times Journalism Institute is 40
By
Alex Mabayoje
Monday, January 09, 2006
Encomiums for Babatunde Jose, former managing director of Daily Times as Times Journalism Institute which he established 40 years ago marks its anniversary
Times Journalism Institute, TJI, Lagos, recently marked its 40th anniversary as a citadel of training for journalists.
The occasion coincided with the institute's celebration of the 80th birthday of Babatunde Jose, doyen of journalism, who established the institute in 1965. Ndubuisi Ugbede, the director of the institute explained that, the establishment of the institute was in response to the challenges of training journalists in Nigeria at that time. He said the TJI has surpassed its expectations in holding the ace for training mass communicators in West Africa. According to him, in the last 40 years, the institute stood up to the challenges of turning out adequate manpower to fill the needs of the media industry in Nigeria. He said: "We have continued to offer post graduate, advanced diploma and diploma courses in journalism, public relations, advertising, radio and television broadcasting. The institute also runs in-plant training services for the media houses."
Ugbede noted that the journalism industry, is currently by facing turbulent times, following the high cost of news prints, ink, flakes, electronic gadgets and other items that facilitate information dissemination. These items, he said, are imported as they cannot be sourced locally. He called on the government to remove restriction and duties on their importation so as to bring down the cost of production and make newspapers and news magazines affordable. He advised stakeholders in the media industry, to look inwards for the sourcing of these materials locally.
Onyema Ugochukwu, former chairman of the Niger-Delta Development Commission, NDDC and senior special assistant to the president, described Babatunde Jose as a visionary leader, whose vision and action turned the Daily Times into a national institution, one of the biggest publishing companies in Africa. Ugochukwu who was a one-time editor of Daily Times said that during his tenure as chairman and managing director of the company, Jose played a major role in the life of the company. He said, "Jose saw the capacity of the media and its possibilities in defining public policy, political debate and even the global perception of our country. His was a vision of development; of national development which placed great emphasis on human resource development, capacity building and the strengthening of institutions."
Ugochukwu explained that the first corps of graduate journalists to impact on the journalism scene in Nigeria owe their entry into the exciting profession to Jose's belief in the value of knowledge. "Jose's success is largely due to the fact that he planned well and invested in the right things. Jose, a man who saw all the odds, faced all the odds, resisted all the temptations and came out as a worthy representative of the best that his generation could boast of," he said.
During the ceremony, 200 TJI graduates received their diplomas and certificates pledging to adhere to the ethics of the profession. Among them was a physically challenged person Isreal Etim, who works with DBN Television.
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