Journalists from various media outlets across Kwara State on Wednesday partook in a training on Media Ethics and Fact-Checking.
The training geared towards reminding and honing the skills and knowledge of journalists in the state by familiarizing them with the 21st Century's tools necessary to uphold journalistic standards and contribute to the fight against the spread of fake news and misinformation, was the 4th Quarterly Media Roundtable for media personnel, organised by Albarka FM, in conjunction with the Wole Soyinka Center for Investigative Journalism, funded by Mac Arthur Foundation, held at the Sity Inn Hotel Onikanga, GRA, Ilorin, the state capital.
Speaking at the event, Mrs Bushrah Yusuf-Badmus, a Principal Correspondent with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) spoke on the topic titled, " Media Law and Ethics: Concept, Principle and Practice."
Mrs Yusuf- Badmus who delivered the topic in relation to media independence and good accountability under the project: Enhancing Media Action for Good Governance and Accountability at Community Level in the state, explained that media ethics deals with the principles and standard of media channels which promotes and defends values such as a universal respect for life and the rule of law and legality, ethical questions about how media should use texts and pictures, noting that Journalism entails a high degree of public trust.
With copious scenarios and instances, she stressed the importance of ethical reporting and the legal considerations that journalists should be mindful of in their media coverage and reportage.
While emphasising the need for a free media landscape for the enhancement of good governance and accountability, she urged media practitioners to abide by the ethics of the profession, and respect the rule of law.
Mrs Yusuf-Badmus also charged them to respect privacy of the newsmakers, minors and confidentiality of their sources in the discharge of their journalistic responsibiltiies.
She equally implored journalists to be wary of media laws such as sedition, defamation, libel, slander and contempt of court in their reportage, stressing that ethics are not punishable under the law but media laws are punishable because Nigerian constitution makes provisions for them.
According to her, no story worth their lives.
Also speaking, Mrs Zainab Oyiza Sanni, from News Verifier, who spoke on the topic, "Fact-Checking as a tool for Investigative Reporting.", observed that fact-checking has become a veritable tool in investigative journalism to ensuring accuracy and credibility in news reporting.
Mrs Sanni, who spoke virtually, gave an overview of the principles and practices of fact-checking, as well as it's methodologies and techniques; and the online resources to achieve that, which by so doing will help mitigate the proliferation of misinformation in the media landscape.
FACTUAL NAIJA NEWS reports that, with participants divided into three groups, the two training sessions gave room for question and answer on Media laws and Ethics as well as practical exercises on fact-checking, allowing each group to in real-time fact-checked using online resources and tools for image verification, video verification, and geo-location.