LAGOS, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA)-Journalists around Nigeria have been urged to collaborate effectively to counter the scourge of, disinformation, mal-information and misinformation as well as stay committed to promoting peaceful elections.
This charge was made by speakers at a webinar on ‘Safeguarding Democracy: The Media and Role of Fact Checking in Peaceful Elections’ organized by Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA) as part of the European Union Support to Democratic Governance (EU-SDGN II) project.
Speaking at the webinar, the Executive Director of CAPPA, Akinbode Oluwafemi said the media plays a critical role on how people perceive elections, and whether it is peaceful or not, and it is important to highlight the role of the media in disseminating accurate information, to ensure peaceful elections.
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Oluwafemi said “this conversation is coming at a time we are preparing for off cycle elections, at a time that people begin to manipulate public communication using the digital media. Those materials find their ways into mainstream traditional media causing backslash from the society.”
Oluwafemi charged journalists “to produce factual, authentic and credible information to ensure peaceful elections, and to be able to get the right leaders into the office.”
Speaking on the importance of factchecking to ensuring peaceful elections, Journalist and Factchecker, Adesola Ikulajolu said “factcheck gives us a leverage to have the right information.”
He highlighted the ways the public can discern and identify misinformation from facts, adding that peddlers of fake news usually leverage on the biases of the readers.
Also speaking, a journalist with Bayero University Kano (BUK) TV/Radio, Mariya Suleiman noted that the citizens have a responsibility to verify the information they consume, as some people would prefer to consume misinformation over the truth.
She recommended that media organizations should “invest in fact-checking initiatives and training for journalists, encourage transparency and accountability in media reporting, foster media literacy among the public to discern credible sources from misinformation; and strengthen collaborations among journalists and CSO groups.”