By Ronke Asagun.
The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) on Thursday urged media practitioners and relevant stakeholders to jointly wage war against fake news and disinformation in the country.
Mr Austin Aigbe, a Senior Programme Officer at CDD, made the call in Lokoja at a two-day stakeholders workshop on ”Fake News and Disinformation in Nigeria”.
Aigbe urged journalists to always do thorough background checks before breaking any news item to the general public, stressing the need to ensure ‘fact checking’.
He described fact checking as “the act of checking the factual assertion in the news function and information”.
Aigbe said disinformation was an act of deliberately misleading or distributing biased information to manipulate narrative or fact (propaganda) to deceive the general public.
“Information that sounds too outrageous probably is not true or should be treated with suspicion. Not all hate speeches sound like hate speech especially in politics,” he said.
Aigbe urged the people to avoid sharing, re-tweeting, and forwarding links on social media without reading the comment with a thorough background check.
Also speaking, Mr Ray Esangbedo, the Deputy Country Director, National Democratic Institute (NDI), said the role of stakeholders from Kogi State could not be underestimated, stressing that fake news posed a threat to global democracy.
Esangbedo stressed the need for every stakeholder to ensure access to accurate information in promoting electoral activities.
“Spreading factual news will ensure that Kogi State has a non-violent electoral process which will ensure a credible, free and fair election,” he said.
On his part, the Resident Electoral Commissioner in Kogi, Prof. James Apam, called for balanced reportage in the build up to electioneering process for Kogi and Balyesa elections.
Apam expressed confidence in the ability of the media to shape the society.
Speaking on behalf of the participants, a journalist, Mr Mike Abu, commended the organisers of the programme, saying the workshop had broadened their knowledge on how to tackle fake news.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the workshop was organised by CDD in collaboration with NDI and USAID.
(NAN)
