NUJ advocates ‘ethics charter’ for journalists to curb fake news

Ahead of the 2023 elections and proliferation of fake news, the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) is seeking the adoption of ‘Global Ethics Charter for journalists’ by media professionals in the country.

National President of the NUJ, Chris Isiguzo, made the appeal at a digital journalism and fact-checking workshop held in Lagos State.

The workshop, sponsored by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), in collaboration with the NUJ, with the theme: “Imperative of Digital News Verification for 2023 Elections,’ was facilitated by PRNigeria.

Isiguzo said that although experts believe fake news is one of the greatest threats to democracy, free debate and good governance, it is journalism or information that deliberately misleads people and distorts reality by spreading false information and others.

According to him, the idea of a journalistic ethos is not only to provoke discussion on ethical and moral issues in journalism practice, but also intended to provide a philosophical basis for journalistic ethics and set conceptual framework for working at and appraising the many hazards in modern journalism practice.

“While there is nothing like ethics and morality in the social media, and by implications in the general information disorder we find ourselves in, it is prosper to encourage accountability in the mainstream media and in whatever we do as media professionals,” he said.

The NUJ boss further said that journalists’ responsibility towards the public takes precedence over any other responsibility, in particular,

He, therefore, urged the media to take its environment into account when performing the role of transmitting information to members of the society.

Earlier, Director-General of NITDA, Mal. Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, who was represented by the agency’s spokesperson, Hadiza Umar, restated NITDA’s commitment to expansion of the digital space, development of journalists’ human capital and the promotion of robust, digital-based journalism that serves the best and wider interest of the nation.

“There’s no doubting the fact that we are in the digital age where everything is now based on computers and the Internet.

“It is of interest to us therefore that our journalists take advantage of the available digital tools to do their jobs better and serve the country better,” he said.

He said that learning how to do fact-checks would definitely help media professionals to be able to do due diligence on any information that comes to them and this will help stem the tide of fake news.