25th August, 2016
The Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Mr Bayo Onanuga, on Thursday announced the Agency’s plan to set up a video portal, to enhance its multimedia services to clients.
Onanuga, who disclosed this during a visit to the management of ThisDay Newspapers in Apapa, Lagos, said that the agency would also develop a photo portal.
According to him, NAN will soon inaugurate a video portal, in line with modern technology, to provide more efficient services to the agency’s over 300 clients across the country.
“Very soon, we are going to launch a video portal and a photo portal.
“As of now, subscribers get photo by e-mail, but we are going to put everything online, so that they can easily access it.
“We are also going to upload into that portal all our historic photographs, because we have them in the archives.
“NAN has facilities to do video interviews and television interviews and run like a normal television station, even though we don’t have a television licence.
“So we have all the facilities that can make this possible,’’ Onanuga said.
He said that since his assumption of duty three months ago, NAN has re-designed its website, to enhance easy access to the news and information provided by the agency.
The NAN managing director also said that the purpose of the visit was enable the agency to synergise with THISDAY Newspapers, resolve their challenges and move forward.
Onanuga, however, said that NAN reporters filed numerous stories which were sometimes delayed because they had to pass through two levels of editing, before being disseminated to the clients.
He said that another challenge faced by the agency was the operation of shift duty by the editors.
Onanuga, however, assured that the agency’s management would ensure that the issues were resolved soon, to enhance productivity.
He added that NAN had collaborations with many foreign news agencies such as Reuters, DPA and Xinhua, to boost its services.
The Executive Director of ThisDay Newspapers, Mr Emmanuel Efeni, suggested to the NAN chief executive that the agency could use its position to do indepth analyses on the economic and social policies of government.
“NAN is in a better position to do such analyses on government’s policies and programmes, and this could be on a quarterly basis, for instance,’’ Efeni said.
He added that there were many programmes of government designed to improve the economy, which the people were not well informed about.
Earlier, the Managing Director of ThisDay Newspapers, Mr Eniola Bello, while welcoming the NAN managing director, urged the agency to take advantage of its national spread in the country and other parts of the world to provide their clients with dependable stories.