Coalition Tasks Journalists On Self-regulation To Tackle Fake News

The Coalition for Good Governance and Economic Justice in Africa, has called on journalists to self-regulate themselves in order to tackle the growing menace of fake news.

The convener of the group, Prince John Mayaki, made the call at a workshop organised for journalists in Abuja on Monday.

While tasking journalists on the need for proper checks and verification before going to the press with their stories, Mayaki said, “Would it be better for the government to regulate social media to save the country from a possible breakdown of law and order, or should we simply self-regulate as patriotic citizens? The latter option looks more plausible to me. We must all refrain from over sensationalizing news, refrain from exaggeration of news, and refrain from deliberate superimposition of different images to make believe.

“As journalists and responsible and patriotic citizens, we must refrain from the hyper-partisan selection of facts at the expense of fairness. Besides, we must understand that sub-standard journalism being framed and colored by ideology is not only dangerous for the immediate survival of a nation, it has debilitating futuristic effects.

“Nevertheless, I quite understand that the problem with sub-standard journalism is not the existence of factual narratives, but poor professionalism and political biases of those who engage in it for their immediate benefits without considering its dangerous ripple effect to the society as a whole. Because, if you ask me, fake news has become a dangerous epidemic.”

On the need for the training and what he hopes to achieve, Mayaki said, “among the objectives of this workshop, therefore, is the training of participants to proactively detect and uncover new cases and forms of misinformation and disinformation – which, of course, is an alternative and self-regulatory approach.

“This workshop is an immediate response to a burning and damaging issue confronting us as a country – the menace that is fake news. So, we need to seek short-term and medium-term strategies to identify fake news through fact-checking tools, and encourage information literacy to enable us distinguish between disinformation and misinformation and ultimately, fake news. It is a call to action, to save our country from unnecessary and avoidable crisis and turmoil as a result of the spiral effects of what fake news could cause. It is also an encouragement for journalists to engage in societal dialogue about how people decide on credibility and why some of them share unverified information.

“As with the news media, for journalism schools and their students, along with media trainers and their learners, this workshop will prove most beneficial. This is also a major opportunity for strong civic engagement with audiences as with the news media, journalism institutions, media trainers and students.”

Also speaking, the chief executive officer of Tomruk Ihub Multiverse, Job David Ayuba, said journalists are expected to adhere to ethical standards that guide their work, such as objectivity, impartiality, truth and fairness.