Prof. Umar Pate, Vice Chancellor, Federal University Kashere, says the conventional media organizations need Multimedia to compete in the media industry.

Pate stated this in his lecture at the 2020 Press Week of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Bauchi Council, with the theme, “The Media, National Security and Socio -Economic Development”, on Tuesday in Bauchi.

He said conventional media Organizations need to brace up with the Multimedia services to compete favourably with other media Organizations and the new media.

“Multimedia is a good way for communication because it is easy to communicate and understand what they say. 

“Multimedia has animation, music, video and more of this. Multimedia also can make it easier to deliver what you want to say. If they don’t know what you say, they can see what you do in multimedia,” he said.

Pate explained that digitization of media Organizations becomes necessary because it converts images to digital form, adding that television qualifies as multimedia because it incorporates audio and video.

“New media objects created on computers result in an immediate, digital deliverable;the old media thus becomes new media.

“Multimedia journalism provides almost infinite ways to tell a story. On the other hand, journalists also have so many more choices to make about how, when and where to tell that story,” Pate said.

The Communication expert also urged media Organizations to train and retrain their staff on information technology and related Innovation.

“Training improves the skills and knowledge of the journalists as the new knowledge acquired would benefit the larger society,” he said.

He pointed out that Digital skills can open new opportunities because there are challenges everywhere but less opportunity.

He called on media organisations to embrace change in the style of communication, train journalists on the new media and technology to be more productive.

Pate urged media personnel to emphasise the benefits of digital economy, research into challenges of digitalisation.

“As a result of media convergence, media house owners tend to employ staff with skills in multimedia, that is, people who can handle text, images, audio, video, and animation at the same time. 

“This gives the job applicant in the media market many opportunities to get employed, and at the same time, reduces cost and staff size for the employer,” he added.