pannigeriannews 
By Isaiah Adewole
The Head of the Department of Communication and Language Arts, University of Ibadan (UI), Dr. Bisi Olawuyi, has called for far-reaching structural and professional reforms in Nigeria’s media landscape to enable solutions journalism move from theory to impactful practice.
Dr. Olawuyi made the call while speaking at a solutions journalism training organised by Dr. Ridwan Kolawole, a practising journalist and lecturer at the Department of Communication and Language Arts, University of Ibadan. The training, held at the department, brought together journalists to interrogate how the media can better report social problems while highlighting credible responses and pathways to change.
Commending the initiative, Dr. Olawuyi described the training as timely, noting that the department plans to build on it as part of its forthcoming 50th anniversary activities.
“When Dr. Kolawole shared this idea with me, I told him that by the grace of God, next year, the department will be organising a very massive workshop on solutions journalism. That will be our own intervention in society,” he said.
Speaking under the theme “Solutions Journalism: The Charge,” Dr. Olawuyi situated solutions journalism within the broader traditions of development journalism and what is known in some countries as constructive journalism.
He argued that the approach challenges dominant Western models of news production that tend to emphasise crisis, conflict and negativity at the expense of development and social progress.
Drawing from his scholarly work on African media representation, the UI don questioned whether African media have sufficiently decolonised their understanding of news.
“If Western media report Africa negatively, how sure are we that African media do not also report themselves negatively?” he asked, noting that prevailing definitions of news and news values across Africa remain largely Western.
Dr. Olawuyi identified three major obstacles confronting solutions journalism in Nigeria: the dominance of Western news definitions, Western newsworthiness criteria, and the absence of strong newsroom policies supportive of public-interest reporting.
According to him, solutions journalism privileges news as a social good, but this runs counter to the commercial logic of most media organisations.
“There is a serious contestation between news as a social good and news as a commodity,” he said, adding that a large proportion of media content in Nigeria is driven by paid news and public relations subsidies.
He further explained that solutions journalism requires editorial space, time and institutional backing resources that are often unavailable in profit-oriented newsrooms already under financial pressure.
Despite these challenges, Dr. Olawuyi stressed that sustained progress could only be achieved through the professionalisation of journalism practice in Nigeria. He differentiated professionalism from professionalisation, arguing that journalism must be regulated through a defined body of knowledge and certification, similar to professions such as medicine, law and accounting.
“Journalism should not be something anyone falls into simply because they can write or have a good voice,” he said, challenging universities and training institutions to redesign curricula that prioritise responsible, solutions-focused reporting.
He cautioned that poor conceptual understanding and sensationalism (especially in reporting sensitive issues such as insecurity) can worsen social tensions and misinformation, urging journalists to be guided by facts, data and context rather than inflammatory narratives.
While acknowledging the systemic constraints confronting solutions journalism, Dr. Olawuyi maintained that continuous training, dialogue and institutional leadership remain critical.
“Even with all these challenges, we must keep talking and keep pushing,” he said.
He congratulated Dr. Kolawole for organising the training and advancing the solutions journalism conversation among Nigerian journalists.
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