‘Journalists should promote women politicians ahead of 2019 elections’

During a two days capacity building workshop in Kano, media men were charged to encourage women participation in politics by giving them balance reportage.

A veteran journalist and one of the resource persons during the training, Mrs Moji Mokanjuola harped on journalists to support women politicians by giving them good coverage.

The workshop which was organised by international Press centre (IPC), aims at equipping the northern journalists with the necessary journalism skills on how to report the 2019 general elections.

Moji, a gender sensitivity expert presented a paper in a topic:”Promoting gender and women issues in election reporting ahead of 2019″

“As we proceed to vigorously encourage women to actively participate in political activities in Nigeria, it has become very important to further sensitize and galvanize the media to use their various platforms to encourage women by generous inclusion in political reporting coverage.

Luckily some media organizations have already embarked on this for example Women’s radio.

“The media should continue pushing the cause of the woman in the stake of inclusive governance and power. Alliances that overarch have to be formed within and outside the hundreds of such organizations that operate in the nation’s political and geographical space.” She Said

In the same vein, Dr Martins Oloja, a Member of the Guardian Newspaper Editorial Board also charged journalists to work towards content development and significant stories.

Oloja, who is also a resource person during the two-day media capacity workshop, urged the participants and all journalists to work with ethics of journalism in order to avoid litigations, stressed,” The 2019 is going to be an electioneering year like no other”.

So journalists must be extremely careful about they report the electoral process.

He commended the International Press Centre (IPC) and European Union (EU) for organising the capacity building workshop for Nigerian journalists.

Ahead of the 2019 general elections, a university scholar and media expert, Professor Umaru Pate cautioned journalists across Nigeria against playing up fake and malicious news stories

According to him, doing these would amount to playing into hands of desperate politicians, whose only business is to destroy the system to achieve their selfish ambitions and overheat the polity.

He further said that the essence of the media is to create platforms for truth, factual, unbiased and balanced news to the citizens.

Professor Pate , who stated this in a paper titled: “Conflict sensitivity and avoiding hate speech as major imperatives in reporting elections in 2019” which he presented during a two-day capacity building workshop organised by the International Press Centre (IPC) in collaboration with EU-Support to Democratic Governance in Nigeria (EU-SDGN) at Tahir Palace Hotel ,Kano for northern based journalists .

The Bayero University Lecturer in the paper also urged media practitioners to adhere strictly to ethics of the journalism profession and the principles of conflict sensitive issues while reporting at all times.

While stressing the need for journalists to understand and adhere to the principles of conflict sensitive reporting, he told practitioners to guard against consequences that may arise as a result of their reports.

” The media should understand the threats associated with such reports and guard against them.

“Doing so would be to undermine national unity, adding that generalised statement not supported by facts and figures on very sensitive and national issues portend danger” , Pate emphasised.

While he decried the situation where leaders make speeches that heat the polity, he stressed the need for avoid hate speeches capable of leading to unrest.

“Threats to national interest, security and negative attitudes in the wider society affects the quality and strength of our democracy.”