NUJ is the umbrella body of all practicing journalists in Nigeria. Most of members of Delta Online Publishers Forum (DOPF) here in Delta State, are members of Delta NUJ and whatsoever benefits that is due a journalist in Delta State, DOPF members ought to benefit from their Chapels as they financially and physically play their roles.
DOPF is a professional body of Online News Publishers in Delta. It is separate and distinct from NUJ. Its members comprise of Proprietors, Editors of Registered Online News publishing platforms owned by Deltans or operating in Delta State.
Delta State Government deals with DOPF differently from NUJ. We have our handlers in Govt and they have been consistent over the years. However because we are also journalists and members of Chapels, and NUJ being the face of journalists in the state, they lord over every benefit to Media practitioners in the state and now see DOPF as competitors.
This insult is simply because, the state government sent the money through NUJ to all media practitioners present at the Briefing. They are not doing us a favour. We were duly invited and entitled to a fat sum from the governor’s support.
Had it been at the end of the Media Chat, our due Envelope was given to us directly, we won’t be on this issue.
So I find it as a joke when our members can’t explain what DOPF stands for to Ikeogwu-led Delta NUJ.
DOPF was created to enable you as a publisher take care of bills; buy data, pay salaries, offset Hosting and Developers bills, pay your office rent if possible and help you with your wardrobe.
It’s a slap on us to give one journalist that reports one story per month 100k and force 300k on the entire DOPF. So, NUJ is saying a News Publiser should only get 10k from 25 million naira? What rubbish?
Do they know that some publishers don’t receive anything from elsewhere but solely rely on DOPF? Without the 300k, the 28 members here have been surviving.
If we are to go by the number of publishers, then, every medium has a chapel. Because, as publishers, we have reporters working for us.
It needs to be explained further that DOPF is a corporate body of organisations in the business of online publishing. To the extent, DOPF individual outfits are business outfits, and therefore stakeholders in the business of information gathering and dissemination.
As a corporate body of online newspaper Proprietors DOPF is distinct from NUJ, which is a trade union and professional body of individual journalists, and to which individual journalists who may be online newspaper Proprietors may belong because they are individual persons and professional journalists. As professional journalists, a journalist and founder of an online news medium though running his outfit as a business can belong to a chapel of NUJ, where he/she pays dues, professional fees and meet all other obligations as may be prescribed by the chapel.
Therefore as stakeholders, DOPF cannot be overshadowed by NUJ because DOPF is a body of organizations engaged in online news publishing business, just like newspaper Proprietors came together as individual business outfits doing newspaper publishing of hard copy newspapers under the aegies of Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN). Persons in NPAN who are journalists are members of NUJ as a professional body to which they must belong. So, government’s recognise them as important stakeholders that must be carried along in the scheme of things.