There is nothing like fake news – Raheem Adedoyin

Secretary, International Press Institute, Alhaji Raheem Adedoyin has urged journalists to always be ethically upright in their day to day reportage of events.

He made the call while fielding questions from journalists in Ilorin, Kwara state capital.

Alhaji Adedoyin, a former Kwara State Commissioner for Information while expressing worry over the clamours against the term fake news said there was never anything like fake news .

“There is no fake news, people don’t just pay attention to what we learnt in school.
News is news, there is no second hand news, no original news, no fake news.There is a threshold, once you cannot make that threshold, it does not qualify to be news so you can’t have fake news

Unfortunately, as Professionals, we have been helping them to promote that anomaly that something that is not good or false is fake news. Its not fake news because it is never news” Adedoyin said.

The former information Commissioner also expressed regrets on the degree of unprofessional conducts among media professionals .

“We have people who are damaging our reputation in the Industry.You read some stories and ask if the writer ever attended any school of journalism.This is an ethical issue and that is the reason some of us don’t want the government to regulate us” He said .

Speaking on the essence of quality reportage, the Veteran Journalist noted that it was high time the media industry looked inwards and self-regulate for better results.

He charged stakeholders in the industry to learn from other elegant associations to uplift their operations.

“Look at the Nigerian Bar Association, Nigerian Medical Association, if you misbehave,they will withdraw your license and have other sanctions for you.

What do you have in the media for somebody who has disgraced all of us? Nothing.

So,we must look inwards Nigerian Guild of Editors, Nigeria Union of Journalists and International Press Institute, all of us must work together and find a mechanism to regulate the practice of journalism in our country” Adedoyin maintained.

The IPI secretary while imploring broadcast outfits to develop their digital arm to meet up with the new trend of broadcasting, said IPI was resolute to ensure press freedom and stall press repression.

He said the Institute had two specific concerns which bothered on safety and ethics in Nigeria and Africa .

” A lot of countries are going through security problems and it becomes very difficult for journalists to do their jobs.

If you go there you risk your life, if you don’t go, there is no report.

So it is almost a lose-lose situation, both for the Press and the Society.

We are concerned about that and we are trying to provide some funding and advocacy along that line.

On ethics, absolutely no reporting is going on in Nigeria and parts of Africa anymore because we don’t have resources to even pursue stories.
It is the second-hand information you get these days.

Because of the economic downturn, most media houses are not able to service necessary infrastructure that enables good reporting to happen. So, we are wading in there too “Adedoyin submitted.

Adedayo Adelowo