Journalists have been urged to instil professionalism in the discharge of their duties as watchdogs that break the untold stories as they appear to promotes unity rather than creating reprisal attacks.
The programme Coordinator Mr Damien lhenkoroye stated this during a 2-day Conflict-Sensitive Reporting Training organized by the Center for Democracy and Development (CDD) in Abuja.
Mr Damien lhenkoroye explained that the programme was funded by the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office and would be implemented for eight months.
“The training expatiate how media can avoid conflicts from headlines or stories that ignite crises and how reports can be twisted to Mean differently from the actual story“
“Journalists were carefully selected from different media organisations in the North, Middle Belt, Western Nigeria and the Niger Delta” he noted.
The coordinator, outlined activities that would deliver the project baseline to include finding out the trend of insecurity in the regions, understanding some of the initiatives for Peace Building to help address disagreements, conflicts and issues through campaign programs using the media to reduce and manage the proliferation of fake news, and hate speech that fuel conflicts in recent times.
Declaring the training open, Senior CDD Fellow, Professor Jibo Ibrahim who spoke on the Centre, emphasized that the training was based on how the media should avoid news capable of causing harm while assuring that it would also inspire participants to be better journalists, committed to advancing the course of Nigeria.
Also speaking the lead facilitator, Award-Winning Investigative Journalist, Ms Ejiro Umukoro explained that quite a several conflict reporting was done out of share bias, hate and personal interest which further fuel and worsen the situation instead of calming down the tension.
She attributed such act as quackery and ill mannered that could destroy the profession of journalism.
Ms. Ejiro urged investigative journalists to dig deep into real and actual fact finding before disseminating stories and should be verified.
She emphasised that both the editorial policy and politics of a media organisation should harmonise and be unambiguous.
Speaking on Conflict-Sensitive Reporting, “Practitioner’s Perspective” Ms Mayeni Jones from BBC West Africa lamented that Nigeria journalists use more negative language that indicates blame game contribution to the escalation of conflicts.
In their response, the participants appreciated the gesture by CDD and described it as timely as the nation is bedeviled by excessive crises in all the zones of the country.
They promised to reflect what they have learnt in the training in their future reportage.
Cov/Umar Adamu S.Fada