By Kelechi Amakoh
Journalists in the country have been urged to use the newly released media code in for reporting elections issues.
President of Nigeria Guild of Editors, Mr. Femi Adesina made this call at a Media Tweet-a-thon organized by the International Press Centre (IPC), Lagos, tagged: “Promoting media role and citizen participation in credible 2015 elections.”
Adesina who called on journalists in the country to obtain a copy of the media code said “they not only need to have it, but also read and internalize it. “
He noted that the elections would hold without negative reports depending on how the media do their duties and called on the media to discharge its duty “as concerns election coverage professionally and dispassionately.”
“Credible reporting promotes the transparency and impartiality that goes into an election that has been properly conducted. Bearing that in mind, stakeholders in the media had worked hard over the past many months to articulate what is now called The Nigerian Media Code of Election Coverage, which has now been formally presented to the public,” he said.
According to the lead speaker at the event, Adesina asserted that the ‘Media Tweet-a-Thon’ programme is a veritable way of spreading the gospel of the code of election coverage “not only to Judea, but also to Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.
“Go tell it on the mountain, over the seas and everywhere, that the Nigerian Media Code of Election Coverage is available, and waiting to be used. Again, we need the buy-in of every chapel, and council of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ),” he added.
Mrs. Funmi Komolafe, Assistant Editor, Vanguard Newspapers, in her contribution noted that there are indeed limiting factors within the industry which hampers the realization of the aim of the code such as: ownership influence, poor welfare package and the lack of protection of journalists.
For Mrs. Abimbola Oyetunde, Secretary of the Lagos Chapter of Nigeria Union of Journalists, a strategic monitoring team should be established to forestall maltreatment of journalists during the coverage of elections. This she says will be a networking of journalists in areas of assignments for easy tracking of any ‘funny’ occurrence in the discharge of duties.
She therefore called on all chapters of the union to get the code which ‘is a pass gate to a hitch-free covering and credible filing of election stories.
In his address, the Director of IPC, Mr. Lanre Arogundade stated that the topic for the Media Tweet-A-Thon ‘was deliberately chosen to discuss how media practitioners can take advantage of the media code in advancing credible reporting of the forthcoming elections.’
He further stated that due consultations and a collaborative measure was put together by stakeholders of the profession to produce the media code earlier launched on December 10,2014.
The Nigeria Media Code of Election Coverage was put together with inputs from: Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN); Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ); Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE); Broadcasting Organisations of Nigeria (BON); Radio, Television, Theatre and Arts Workers Union of Nigeria (RATTAWU); Nigeria Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ), Media Rights Agenda (MRA); and International Press Centre (IPC).
