Photo: Osoba
Some media stakeholders have called for capacity building of journalists in the country to suit current trend.
They also tasked media practitioners on ensuring positive reportage of the country.
The stakeholders made the suggestion and appeal at a roundtable in Lagos with theme: “Bridging the Gap between the Classroom and Newsroom”.
According to them, constant training of practitioners would make journalists to be in tune with what was expected of them by the public, and blur frictions that caused misinformation.
The stakeholders charged newsmen to tailor their energy and resources in reports that would portray the country in good light in order not to scare investors away.
The session was to foster an interface between operators in the media and communication industry and the teachers and students in schools.
In his remark at the event, a former governor of Ogun State, Olusegun Osoba, who is also a Journalist, charged practitioners to embrace Information communication Technology (ITC) in order to be at par with trending news and check fake news dissemination.
“For any journalist to worth his or her calling presently he or she should be ICT compliant to be on top of his job.
“ICT compliant will aid investigative reportage and reduce or check the spread of fake news thereby reduce the tendency of such misinformation causing damage in society,” he said.
Osoba, who decried influx of fake news especially through the social media, called on the regulatory bodies to go after those spreading fake news, because of the damage and soiling of the noble profession.
Prof. Armstrong Idachaba, who spoke at the event for the Acting Director-General of National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), said that policy review and implementation to suit present trend were essential to check the excesses of some unpatriotic practitioners.
“Media regulators must act promptly to check misdeeds before such bloom to points that it becomes norms in the sector.
“Registration of bloggers is important to check the spread of some information that can cause the society pains.
“Registration is part of regulation that can aid in tracing individual social media operator and sanction meted out to erring persons for others to learn from and desist from fake and sensational news,” he said.
He stressed that, it was what a people called their country that the outside world would call it.
He asked practitioners to write good things that were taking place in the country and encourage upsurge in foreign investment flow.
The Convener of the session, Prof. Ralph Akinfeleye, said that the interface meeting of the practitioners, teachers and students in the sector was to bridge the gap, where the industry operators finds products of the schools unemployable.
According to him the programme that has become a feature of the sector will be carried out regularly to ensure the performance and credibility gap of Mass Communication graduates is over.
In his address to journalist at the event, the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) , Lagos State Chapter Chairman, Adeleye Ajayi, said that the body was mapping out strategies to check purveyors of misinformation and fake news
