How Reporting COVID-19 Boosted My Career

• TV Big Gal, ADEDOJA SALAM-ADENIYI

The name Adedoja Salam-Adeniyi certainly rings a bell everywhere. She is on TVC everyday delivering her reports. This young and gorgeous looking award winning journalist, a Senior Correspondent with TVC, made a huge name for herself when she dared to tread where no one else wanted to go. Few years back, 2020 precisely during the Covid-19 pandemic, Adedoja and her camera man also from TVC showed incredible bravery when they dared to step inside the isolatiojn center, a place where death was obviously lurking everywhere. This was a place where Covid-19 patients were kept. It was their home for several months. Everyone gave the place a wide berth. But not Adedoja. She wanted to get inside there and do a comprehensive report on how real Covid-19 was. She wanted Nigerians who didn’t believe the disease existed to see things for themselves and see the faces of Nigerians like themselves who were battling to survive the attack of Covid-19.

It was a very risky thing to do. Adedoja put her life on the line for her job, for a profession she loves with a passion. She felt somebody needed to do the job and she offered herself, regardless of the massive risks involved. In the end, she came out of it all unscathed. She became celebrated all over. This is why today, she commands enormous respect amongst her peers.

In this interview, the very brilliant and supremely confident Adedoja Salam-Adeniyi spoke to City People’s Senior Editor, WALE LAWAL (08037209290) shortly after she picked an award at the City People Female Achievers Award held recently in Ikeja, Lagos. Enjoy excerpts of the conversatuons.

Congratulations on the award you just received, this is one award that will certainly delight a lot of your fans and those who follow you very closely. Share with us your thoughts at this time….

I feel honoured. I feel delighted that people see what we do and they appreciate it. Uncle Seye Kehinde is a veteran in this business and when someone from your constituency appreciates you, it goes a long way. This is not just an ordinary award, it’s for recipients the organisers believe have done a great deal in their various professions, so I really appreciate him. I’m honoured. I’m very grateful to God.

Take us through a bit of your journey into broadcasting, what prepared you for what you’re doing?

Okay, so, my parents, especially my dad, he’s a news person. Not that he worked in the broadcasting industry, but he likes watching news and from my childhood days, he will tell me, listen to the news. He was always encouraging me to do this. When I was in the secondary school as well, my teachers were always telling me to study Mass Communication because I sometimes conducted assembly sessions and took part in a lot of debate competitions, so I guess they saw the potential in me and told me there is a course called Mass Communication, that’s what you should go for. And that’s exactly what I did. I worked for the first time at BCOS, I had traveled to Ibadan then because one of my sisters was working in Ibadan at the time. So, I worked with BCOS, Mapo radio, that was when I was introduced to the industry for the first time. Our job was to monitor BBC and obseveral other stations. That was a herculean task then. Afterwards, I worked with Galaxy Television, Oke Are in Ibadan. Later, my sister left Ibadan so we returned to Lagos while I went on to serrve in Bauchi State. The Governor of Bauchi State, His Excellency Adamu Muazu, gave me an award of excellence. He also gave me an automatic employment on my personal parade day in Bauchi State in 2005. I worked with Bauchi State television as a reporter. What I did then was that I equipped the information unit, they didn’t have cameras, they didn’t have a lot of tools and as a Lagos girl, I told them the importance of having those quipments in the department and said I was going to try and raise funds for the equipment. So, I was able to get the equipments and it was later I found that there usually is an award given to corp members who have been able to distinguish themselves. That was why I was given the automatic employment by the governor at the time.

So, I worked at Bauchi television for about year before deciding to come back home to Lagos. I joined TVC in 2008 as a news reporter and with TVC, I have gone for different courses like how to work in an hostile environment, do documentaries and all of that before climbing up the ladder to become a senior correspondent in TVC news, so that’s where we are and I am still moving on.

Let me get you to share with us this very important part of your career. One of the most enduring memories of your career that people will always remember you by would be the Covid-19 era. A lot of people felt that was a heroic thing that you did, putting your life on the line just so you could give the public the vital information they so needed to have at that time. What were the thoughts going on in your mind while you were right in the middle of Covid infected patients and in an isolation center where anything you touched could have been infected?

The Covid-19 era was a time anyone shouldn’t be a journalist. And it was also a time for a good journalist to rise up and prove he’s a good journalist. I say this because somebody has to tell the story, most especially because in this part of the country, people don’t believe these things exist. It took us time to get into the isolation centre because they never wanted us to go in. They were afraid that we could be infected and they didn’t want that to happen. And I am the sort of person that if I want to go to the field I seldom tell my husband. But during Covid-19, my boss said this is a matter of life and death and you have to tell him. If he says no, then it’s a no. I tried to argue but my boss wouldn’t listen. He insisted I must get my husband’s consent. I said, okay, fine. My hubby wasn’t around at the time so I sent him a message that I needed to go into the isolation centre because we needed to tell this story. He first hesitated for a while and then finally said, okay, yes, we can. The camera man too had an option to say no, he wouldn’t go with me, but when I spoke with him, he said, yes, he was ready. So this encouraged me too to go ahead. I had been on that story a month before I did it because they never wanted us to go in but with perseverance, consistency, focus, we eventualy had our way. They even said I should sign a document that if anything happens to me, they shouldn’t be held responsible, because where we were going was ground zero, a place where you don’t even get to see the enemy you’re fighting against. And most of our people didn’t even believe Covid existed despite the fact that it was spreading and I just felt somebody had to tell the story. And because we were right inside there, they saw live images of those that have died and those that were dying and that actually changed the narrative in Nigeria and people started believing that it is true. And from that moment, people began to take the precautions very seriously. They started to wear their nose masks, wash their hands properly, etc. That was the story that changed everything and I was glad about that.

But I soon began to notice afterwards that when people see you, they believed you’re carrying Covid around. It was a time I had to keep to myself because I found that people don’t really want you in their midst, so it was a difficult period for me. Even after 14 days had passed, and even a month and people were still scared to have me around them, I didn’t like it. So, I would just keep to myself, stay in my car to do stuffs and keep to myself. I felt so unhapy because I couldn’t imagine experiencing that kind of discrimination from people. It was like a big stigma on my personality. It even affected my husband’s job. He was supposed to get a job somewhere, they were supposed to have a business meeting, but they had to cancel that meeting because they saw me on air and this was after 14 days had passed. They didn’t want him in their midst because they feared I may have infected him. So, he didn’t get that job opportunity and he came back home and said, oh, it was that story that you did. They didn’t even want to see me there, they said I’m carrying Covid around. So, I now asked him that, you mean they didn’t reschedule the meeting or something? He said, don’t worry, another opportunity will come. So, this is how our people can take thngs to the extreme. It can be depressing at times when you do these stories and then get negative feed backs like this one. But what gives you strength is that you’ve been able to change something. It gives you joy when you know you have been able to change the narrative, you have been able to save lives. So, for me, focus does it, consistency does it.

But there must also be a flip side to it, what positive impact did this brave coverage of Covid-19 have on your career at the time?

Oh, yes, after the Covid-19 story, I got my promotion. I was promoted and celebrated by my colleagues. After then, I became even more well known internationally because we are talking about a place where people are running away from and this is a woman going there to do the job. After that story, I got offers from abroad. Foreign organisations reached me, you know the wold is a global village now and they obviously saw the coverage too, they asked me to come work for them. I got offers from organisations here in Nigeria as well. Several local stations reached me and said, don’t worry, just name your price, but I said to them, no thanks. Because, you know, sometimes, you just need to calm down, put a lot of things into considerations before taking some steps. And people prayed for me a lot. Do you know that people I didn’t even know, when they see me, they will tell me, “omo yi, agbo to lagbara wa o.”  They will tell me they have all kinds of agbo (local herbs) believing I may have been infected with the Covid-19. Some would ask me, ‘come, my child, are you not the one going inside the isolation center? Come, let me give you powerful herbs that you take each time you go there.” So, many people showed concern for my well being. So, I’m grateful that I did the story. Though I have done several other big stories before that but the Covid story was a national story, even an international one and I’m thankful to God for everything.