A two-day election reportage training and dialogue with stakeholders organized for Edo State-based journalists by the International Press Centre (IPC), under the auspices of the EU-Support to democratic governance in Nigeria (EU-SDGN II) “Component 4: Support to the media” ended July 5, 2024, at the Edo Heritage Hotel and Suites, Benin City.
The training got media practitioners revved up on how to monitor the campaign and election process to stem the flow of fake news and misinformation through fact based journalistic reportage even as they got a heads up nod from resource personnel to remain safety conscious and alert on the election field during their coverage of the governorship election on September 21.
The IPC training programme enabled participants to interface with resource persons such as the renowned environmentalist and activist, Mr. Nnimmo Bassey, of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) who, apart from sensitizing against the use and consumption of genetically modified food to which he drew governments attention, urging it to implement a policy to stop its use and consumption in society, also sensitized journalists on the need to hold politicians to account based on their campaign manifestoes.
Mr. Taiwo Obe (T.O), Director, Journalism Clinic, who took participants through the newsroom scenario and story telling techniques, emphasized the need to “Ask” inquisitive and open-ended research based questions to break barriers.
Importantly, journalists were brought up to speed with Artificial Intelligence (AI), resource tools such as “perplexity.AI” and “Nubia.AI” downloadable on Chrome or Google play store to sharpen story telling and fact checking techniques to counter misinformation.
Mr. Lanre Arogundade, Executive Director, IPC, informed that election reportage is not about the “Picture in our head” but the “Picture in the heads of the people,” hence the need for media practitioners to double check claims and facts revealed by politicians with experts. He encouraged the flashback method of looking back at what politicians said in previous elections.
The interface with critical election stakeholders in charge of security led by the Force public relations officer, FPRO, who represented the Commissioner of Police; Commander, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, represented by the command’s PRO; election umpire- Resident Electoral Commissioner, Edo REC,
Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, represented by its PRO; as well as the leadership of the Edo State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ; Nigeria Association of Women Journalists, NAWOJ and the Online Media Practitioners, OMP, all shared insights with participants.
However, on a candid note, instead of the INEC representative dissipating energy slurring a participant based on raised field experience during the last national election at a polling unit which had to do with the use of manual registers and the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, machines at a polling unit, such energy should be channeled towards building public trust, ensuring voters registers are adequately updated manually and uploaded into the BVAS.
Where there is an identified lapse or failure of such names to be verified on both registers, due to no fault of such a voter, effort should be made to allow such voters, desirous to partake in the voting process exercise their civic franchise.
