New Telegraph

Take action to halt fake news,AbdulRazaq, Premium Times, NPAN urge media execs

Kwara State Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq yesterday joined media executives to call for urgent actions to halt the spread of fake news, saying the earlier the menace is tackled the better for peace and security of the country. The governor spoke in Ilorin, the state capital, at a lecture organised to celebrate the 60th birthday anniversary of Oloriewe Raheem Adedoyin, a media giant and chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress in the state. AbdulRazaq said that media professionals would be best suited to regulate the industry themselves, especially with the advent of the social media and proliferation of news platforms, with scant regard for professional ethics and consideration for national security. He said: “Leaders in the media industry, politicians and government are concerned about the issue of fake news.

Today, anybody can wake up and set up a news agency online unregulated. You should not leave it to politicians to regulate it because you understand the industry better. “Anytime I see news online, I will first go to major newspapers and if it is not there, I will move away.

Now, we should go beyond that because there are a lot of slanderous, unprofessional reports trending online. You need to clean up the industry. So there is a challenge for you especially in making regulations that will check the trend of fake news.” Dapo Olorunyomi, publisher of the Premium Times online newspaper, who delivered the lecture said the media, which plays essential roles in strengthening democratic rule and accelerating national development, must not be left unguarded from saboteurs and the challenge of disinformation, noting that fake news is a menace prompted by technological advancement and can only be defeated intellectually.

He argued that no society where democracy is the choice of government can ever succeed without responsible media, tasking all decision-making organs to rise against the menace of fake news before it goes out of hand. While Kabir Yusuf, the NPAN president, stressed the need for media practitioners to substantially design a framework to address the problem of bad eggs in the industry, maintaining that self regulation is the best way to address the problem of fake news.

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