Renowned and respected veteran journalist, Mr. Ray Ekpu has emphasized the importance of accurate, and fair reporting in elections, describing the ‘fairness doctrine’ as the most important doctrine in the ethics of journalism.
Ekpu spoke as Chairperson of the Thursday session at the 19th All Nigeria Editors Conference (ANEC), 2023, in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State capital, with the theme: “Stimulating Economic Growth, Technological Advancement: Role of the Media”
He noted that how media practitioners do their job affects the trajectory of the profession and the perception of the profession by the public as well as how they prosper in the business.
READ ALSO: Fire Guts Market In Lagos, Good Worth Millions Of Naira Destroyed
His words: “Seriously I am happy to welcome you to this conference. It is coming at a more opportune time because we have just finished rigorous elections, electing new leaders for our dear country.
“The elections are gone but the remnants are still there. The vituperations are still there, and Nigeria is struggling to overcome them. Our role in the election is as important as the role of the other people involved in it-, the security people, INEC, Judiciary and so on.
“And in our various publications, we used to say, “All Eyes are on INEC”. And INEC did what it did, and so the election was over and then we shifted it, and said “All Eyes are on the Judiciary’. Now at the national level, the Judiciary has finished its job.
” And I think we never said, “All eyes are on the Media’, But there were several Eyes on us and the point is, did we do our job properly, fairly, ethically, professionally? That is something we need to talk about because that affects the trajectory of our profession and the perception of our profession by the public.
READ ALSO: Tragedy Adverted As ValueJet’s Aircraft Skids Off Runway
“And that affects how we run our business, how our business prospers. So I think that should be part of our task today; to say to ourselves did we do our jobs properly? Did we do fair and accurate reporting?”
“If we were not fair, then we failed. If we were fair then we succeeded. So it is not the other pillars only, the Media are a pillar of democracy. We were there in the trenches, we were the major fighters.
“The politicians ran away, and all of them went and confirmed Abacha as a candidate, in what I call ‘political Polyandry”, one woman has been married to several men. That is what our politicians did”, he said