INEC pushes for code of conduct on media reporting of elections
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), charged with the responsibility of conducting elections, is pushing for code of conduct on media reportage of elections, it hopes will be ready before the 2015 general elections.
The basis for the code of conduct, which it is developing in conjunction with some organisations and support from UNDP, is to checkmate partisan reporting and publication of falsehood by some media houses.
The Nigerian media already operates on various ethical standards, but the chairman of INEC, Attahiru Jega, speaking recently at the Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria’s (NPAN) annual meeting, believed that the creation of a code of conduct for media reporting of elections will discourage all sorts of allegations that were really not substantiable.
“We need objective media reporting to deepen democracy in our country and promote credible reforms of electoral process. I know you give your reporters and columnists freedom as required by law, but there are things that are decent. Impartial and balance reporting is important and we must pay a lot of interest to this,” Jega told the newspaper publishers.
While asking the publishers to lend their support to the code and other efforts of the commission to ensure electoral reform, Jega, who is challenging a published report in court that he owns a house in Abuja, said the media and NPAN were major partners in building enduring democracy.
He spoke against the background that journalism involves a high degree of public confidence. It is therefore important for the media to uphold high ethical standards in their professional practice to earn public trust.
According to him, INEC has also introduced a communication policy that can encourage better voter education and public enlightenment, as the commission is also engaging journalists and media practitioners so that together “we can have better voter education.”
We have introduced a communication policy that can help us do better voter education and public enlightenment, and that can also help us better engage with journalists and media practitioners so that together we can build a better framework for voter education.
“Voter education is very important and critical, and we urge NPAN to consider something in the way of CSR of doing something about voter education. Media can create messages like come out to vote but please register.
‘’There is need for all of us to work together and for NPAN to make some little sacrifices of contributing to enlightening voters. If the voters are not enlightened, even when they come out to vote, they can waste their votes. And the most important thing in the electoral process is to have informed voters who will come out and cast their choice so that their choice can make a difference,” he said.
Jega urged media houses to shun bias reporting, but however commended the publishers on the positive things in enlightening Nigerians through news and analysis, which were ingredients to progress and development of the nation.
“Your investments are private investments but with tremendous public utility. It is therefore very important in my view that proprietors of newspapers must balance public interest with public good. I have no doubt that some of you are doing well in that regard. Your investments are perhaps personal sacrifices to contributing to progress and development in our country.”
In his response, the president of NPAN, Nduka Obaigbena, expressed the association’s willingness to collaborate with INEC to deepen democracy. On Freedom of Information Act, he said to some people, the Act had remained as a law in paper, assuring that the association will ensure that the law was given life.
Daniel Obi