
Practicing Journalists in Kogi state have been tasked to use their reports to douse crises and stay alive rather than causing a distraction to society.
They were advised to use appropriate languages that can create awareness and ease political, economic, and illiteracy challenges and the absence of good governance facing society.
This was the submission at the end of one-day training and workshop on Conflict Sensitive reporting for Journalists in Kogi state by Stallion Times Media Service as one of its activities in year 2 of the 3-year Participatory Governance and Media Literacy project tagged “Get Involved, Dialogue and Improve (G-DRIP)” in Kano and Kogi states.
The project is in collaboration with the Wole Soyinka Center for Investigative Journalism under the Collaborative Media Project with support from the MacArthur Foundation.
According to the communique which was signed by the Chairman of the Kogi State Union of Journalists, Adeiza Momohjimoh and Isiyaku Ahmed, Editor-in-chief of Stallion Times stressed that it is only independent and pluralistic media would provide a platform for free speech, while cautioning against the media being misused for propaganda and to incite hatred and spread rumors, thereby artificially creating tensions.
The workshop believes that finding a balance between preventing harm caused by hate speech and fake news could hamper peaceful coexistence and heighten social mistrust among the people.
The participants warned journalists working on conflict and crises situation to stay off judgemental representations and to express reality without embellishment.
It added that Journalists working on conflict must first understand the dynamics and actors in the crises to be able to objectively address the issues rather than reporting from lack of the history and triggers of the conflict.
They called on journalists to be mindful of the choice of words to be used, and he implored them to be alive to their ethics and the burden placed on them by the constitution of the country.
According to the communique, Peacebuilding should be the core objective of journalism, while Journalists should be mindful of their safety by adhering to the usage of safety kits while covering conflict zones.
“Media men should not be carried away by the ‘Breaking News syndrome, which often time leads to insufficient facts of the story thereby leading readers to seek other unauthorized sources with direct consequences on the peace and security of the citizenry.
“Despite threats, physical and moral hazards, media practitioners are expected to live up to the ethics and standards of the profession, meanwhile isolating all forms of incitement among the warring parties.
Emphasizing the need for media owners to take the welfare of the Journalists seriously, called for training, retraining of Journalists, and providing healthcare and social protection for journalists.
The communique added that for effective monitoring of the activities of Journalists and media owners, a special institution should be set up aside Nigeria Press Council that will be responsible for regulating the promotion of professionalism in the media industry in the country. the communique noted