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By Joel Anekwe
Polaris Bank Limited has charged journalists in Nigeria to live up to their responsibilities of factual and authentic presentation of news reports in order to save the services sector from the dangers of widespread incidences of fake news.
Giving the charge in Port Harcourt on Monday, at a one-day Polaris Bank Media Capacity Building Session on Online Journalism in the Era of Fake News, Nduneche Ezurike, head, Strategic Bank Management expressed concern that the volume of fake news especially emanating from the social media in recent times pose a danger to the survival of the services sector.
Identifying banks, and also the media, as players in the services sector who can be hurt by fake news, he said: “Journalists as members of the Fourth Estate of the Realm have no choice than to protect the services sector which is where you and us the banks play,” adding that the traditional news media should not accept the idea of ‘anything goes.’
He counseled that the journalists as professional mass media practitioners should regularly re-invent and upgrade themselves to be the pacesetters in the business of dissemination of credible news to the public, adding that it was a duty they owe their respective audiences.
He said: “The exponential growth of the social media is huge. It has broken all the boundaries and barriers and has been responsible for the high rate of fake news circulation around the world. Journalists must therefore be ahead of the time and not choose to be playing catch up all the time.
“If you (journalists) don’t disrupt yourselves, you will be disrupted. If you are not a beneficiary of the changing global communications industry you will become a victim. The fake news phenomenon is real. If you don’t do anything about it, it can consume you,” Ezurike added.
Lead Presenter at training and founder, Journalism Clinic, Taiwo Obe, described fake news as made up stuff masterfully manipulated and easily spread online to large audiences willing to believe the fictitious report and spread the word.
He stated “Truth is the cornerstone of journalism, and every journalist should strive diligently to ascertain the truth of every event in the course of his duty. A journalist must arrive to separate fact from conjectures.”
Warning against the consequences of fake news, one of which is war, he said: “A fact is something that has been proven to be truth. Journalism’s obligation is to the truth, its first loyalty is to the people and its essence is the principles of verification.”
He advised journalists to adopt the principles of external vigilance to ward against spreading fake news, urging them to “make that attempt for verification because of the consequences of fake news.”
