Fight fake news, be patriotic – Coalition tells journalists

By Ruth Oketunde

The Coalition for Good Governance and Economic Justice in Africa has called on Nigerian journalists to be patriotic citizens and ensure they stop the spread of fake news in the country.

Mr John Mayaki, the Country Director of the organisation, gave the call at a one-day workshop for journalists on Monday in Abuja.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the workshop is tagged “Balancing Ethics and Patriotism: The Obligations of Journalists to their Country”.

Mayaki said that it was important for journalists to identify fake news and practise self regulation, as the spread of fake news had continue to cause more harm than good to the peace and unity of the country.

“It is important for journalists to fake check information and of the take aways from this workshop is patriotism, how to identify fake news and how to stop it.

“During the elections, we noticed a lot of fake news and the world thought that Nigeria would collapse, but we did not collapse.

“We need to congratulate ourselves for that and it is important that cyber laws are enforced in other to bring sanity to the cyber space,” he said.

Also speaking, Mr Ademuyiwa Adebola, a guest speaker at the event, urged journalists to ensure that news are true and factual before they forward to others.

“Before you share or post, ask yourself if you will be proud of the piece you shared in 30 years from now.

“Also ensure that you keep your private life private if you do not want those who are not trained journalists to use you as contents.

“Ensure that you do not forward any information as received, first think about how useful the information will be, if it will not be useful, don’t share it before you send someone into depression,” he said.

Another speaker at the event, Mr Kingsley Osadolor, called on journalists to shun negative reportage of the country in their stories.

“Let us endeavour to focus on the positive aspect of our country and leave the negative aspect out.

“There is no country that does not have its bad side, let us focus on the positive part of our country and sell it to the world,” he said.

NAN reports that the event had in attendance representatives of civil society organisations, fact-checkers, legal experts and journalists from different media organisations, among others.

(NAN)