The Department of State Services (DSS) has tasked media practitioners to shun fake news, promote unity, peaceful co-existence in the country.
DSS Public Relations Officer (PRO), Dr Peter Afunanya, handed down the charge, Saturday, during a one-day seminar organised in collaboration with the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), FCT Council, for journalists covering the service on Media and National Security, Saturday in Abuja.
The Spokesperson, while delivering a paper on Fake News and National Security, urged the media to always consider the peculiarity of Nigeria’s ethnic and religious diversities in their reportage of events.
Afunanya, who decried, the rate at which members of the public falsely blame the service and other security agencies for every incident in the country, said the spread of fake news cuts across all ages, professions and statuses in this era of social media.
“We believe that in discharging its responsibility, the media must also take into account, the peculiarity of the country in terms of ethnic and religious diversities.
“The media must be responsible users of the pen and set agenda that can promote unity, cohesion and peaceful co-existence.
“When you use your pen to twist facts to suit your emotional and selfish interest and make people of different nationalities fight each other, you are not achieving what the constitution has demanded of you.”
Giving the Keynote Address, the Chairman, NUJ FCT Council, Comrade Emmanuel Ogbeche, said the theme of the seminar was apt in view of current security challenges facing the country.
He said national security was the protection of lives, rights, dignity and property of citizens, adding that the aim was to secure the just and equitable living conditions of the populace.
The union leader called on journalists to use the powers bestowed on them in the constitution judiciously and for the interest of the public, noting that objectivity was key in the discharge of media responsibility.
Ogbeche further stated that security agencies, vested with the authority to ensure public safety, protection of the economic interest and political stability of the country, would not achieve their goals without the media.
The NUJ chairman, therefore, called for mutual understanding between the media and security agencies.
Other papers delivered at the seminar include on The Challenges and Prospect of media/Security Relations in Contemporary Nigeria by Editor, Northern Operations, Vanguard Newspapers, Soni Daniel; and Journalism and National Unity: The Role of Nigerian Journalist by Ifeanyi Dumebi, Publisher, Politics Nigeria.