The National President of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), Mr. Waheed Odusile, has called on journalists to take over the social media to stem the tide of spreading fake news on the platforms.
Odusile made the call in an exclusive interview with The Next Edition.
He declared that most of the fake news in the social media were by non-journalists.
His words: “The major solution is that journalists should also go into social media so that we can correct whatever falsehood that we see there.
“Some of the purveyors of fake news don’t know anything about journalism so they might not be doing it deliberately.
“Journalists deal with just the facts. By the time we start debunking those lies on social media, the public will learn to always go and crosscheck whatever they see.
“If they crosscheck once or twice and they now discover that what an individual put up is false then that person will lose credibility. And that is what we cherish the most as journalists: credibility.”
He explained that because the non-journalists were not trained or knowledgeable in the business of information dissemination, they churned out falsehood.
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He said while some of them did that unknowingly, majority did it for mischievous reasons.
According to him, once journalists took over the platforms, there would be sanity.
He said journalists would always debunk the falsehood and present the facts as they might be.
He added that people should always verify the information on the social media before reaching a conclusion.
Said he: “I always tell people, whatever they see on social media, they should try and verify before consuming it. Whatever is not on mainstream media, be very careful, be circumspect.
“So if you see something that is suspicious on social media or too good to be real, go and verify. It is most likely that that thing is not true. It could be a makeup or whatever. So people should be circumspect of whatever information they get on social media.”
