Media Professionals Charged To Adherence to Media Ethics
By shola Rotimi
A media roundtable discussion on media laws; concept, principles and practice has shed more light on the need for journalists to operate within the ethics and laws of their profession.
A guest speaker, Ms Bushra Yusuf- Badmos, a Principal Reporter at the News Agency of Nigeria, Ilorin office, said the Journalism profession demands accuracy, fairness and editorial independence among others.
“As media professionals, we have to always be circumspect in our reportage and most importantly, on any investigative reporting because people are always looking up to us to feed them with daily happenings in our environment, and what we dish out has to be accurate and factual.”
Bushra Yusuf-Badmos also emphasized the need for media professionals to always operate within media laws, noting that such laws do not seek to limit their operations, but help to regulate their acts within a legal framework.
She called in participants to respect the privacy of members of the society and uphold confidentiality when dealing with classified information that are not against public interest.
Also, a resource person, Ms Zainab Sani, in a virtual session, charged journalists to always verify the sources of their information and as well help members of the public verify news contents in text, pictures, audio and videos.
Sani added that newsmen must seek to develop themselves and be up- to- date in the areas of using digital verifying tools to curb misinformation in any form.
The workshop, organized by Albarka FM, Ganmo was supported by the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism and powered by McArthur Foundation with participants drawn across media organizations– mainstream and new media.
