By Bimbola Oyesola, [email protected]
The Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU) has tasked the conventional media on maintaining credibility and trust in information dissemination, saying their survival was tied to it.
General-secretary of NASU, Prince Peter Adeyemi, speaking at the weekend at a two-day capacity building seminar for Labour Writers’ Association of Nigeria (LAWAN), sponsored by NASU in Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State, said credibility and trust of the community could only be built by the spirit of professionalism of journalists who adhere to the ethics of journalism.
Speaking on the theme “Empowering Media Practitioners for Future Challenges Reflection on COVID-19,” Adeyemi, who was represented by Ivor Takor, former president of NASU, opined that the survival of conventional media was tied to trust in information dissemination.
According to him, to survive, conventional media must to maintain credibility and trust in information presented, “This credibility and trust of the community can only be built by the spirit of professionalism of journalists who adhere to the ethics of journalism, which is to present factual information that is well verified.”
“This is a strong offer for print media to be able to survive. The media industry, especially print media, must make changes if it does not want to be marginalized.
“What is the future of news after COVID-19? When we ask about the future of news, we are talking about the work of journalists. COVID-19 is a human story about health, economics and social relations,” he said.
He expressed the opinion that the biggest challenge to journalists in the print and electronic media, including labour writers, was the digital information era, which is synonymous with the competition between mainstream media and new media, in the case of online media.
NASU emphasized the need for journalists to be empowered, especially in the COVID-19 era.
He added, “The pandemic and related economic and social changes are having immediate effects, but they will also change our lives in the long term.
“The negative impact of the economic disaster it has caused will hit the news industry hard. We may not know exactly how, but news media will certainly have to understand and reflect those changes. Technology is only part of the story of the future of news, but it will continue to be a critical catalyst for structural change,” he said.