President Muhammadu Buhari |
He urged the media to practice good journalism in order to rid the world of hate speech and insecurity.
Buhari, who spoke at the 67th World Congress of the IPI in Abuja, agreed with the theme of the summit that “good journalism matters.”
He said: “In a world where the borderline between hate speech and free speech has become blurred, good journalism matters. In an environment where fake news dwarfs investigative reporting, Good Journalism Matters.
“The changing media landscape, the explosion of the social media and the rapidly evolving new technology have had profound impact on media business and media practice. It is satisfying, therefore, that you have chosen an appropriate theme for your conference: Why Good Journalism Matters: Quality Media for Strong Societies.
The annual congress, he observed, was holding in Nigeria during a period of global terrorism.
He added: “Nigeria experiences that scourge through Boko Haram, which has been technically degraded and has no territorial hold anywhere, anymore, in its northeast operational base. The Internally Displaced Persons are gradually returning to their communities in reasonable safety and security.
“It is a reflection of your assessment of Nigeria as a safe country that you gave the country the hosting right for this conference. As you have seen since your arrival, you made a wise and right choice.”
He explained what Nigeria had been doing to facilitate the Ease of Doing Business.
“One of the reform initiatives of this administration is the introduction of visa on arrival policy. The policy is designed to aid ease of doing business in Nigeria. I am glad that international delegates to this conference are beneficiaries of this policy.
“Nigerian government has provided necessary support for a successful hosting right from the time our delegation presented its hosting bid in Qatar to the granting of that right in Germany last year.
“I commend the efforts of the Nigeria Hosting Committee for organizing this conference. It is one more evidence of Nigeria’s capacity for doing great things.
”Executive Director, International Press Institute (IPI), Barbara Trionfi, expressed regrets that independent journalism was under attack all over the world.
She said: “There is a sense that independent journalism is under attack and press freedom as eroded all over the world.
‘From Mexico to the Philippines, from Zimbabwe to Turkey, from Russia to Ethiopia, journalists are being imprisoned, they are denied access to justice, they are threatened an insulted on social media, they age directly targeted after labeled as traitors, and enemies of the state and they are killed, shot in front of their houses, on their way to work by killers who know that murdering journalist is the easiest way to silence them and ensure that the stories of corruptions they were investigating, the wrongdoing they had uncovered will never be revealed.
“At least 43 journalists have been killed so far in 2018 in places like Afghanistan, Mexico, India, Pakistan, or the Philippines, to mention a few.
President Buhari: The world needs good journalism
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June 22, 2018
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