Journalism is anchored on facts – Onanuga

Mr Bayo Onanuga, the Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), says journalism is anchored on facts.

Onanuga said this on Thursday in Abuja at a two-day training programme on Investigative Reporting for NAN staff conducted by Premium Times Centre For Investigative Journalism.

According to him, “we have to write facts if not, the story is fiction.”

“As journalists, we must check the facts dished out. All serious media organisations do facts checking. Things are changing with the digital system,’’ he said.

He urged the participants to concentrate in order to learn so that the aims and objectives of the training would be achieved.

Earlier, Premium Times Publisher and Chief Executive, Mr Dapo Olorunyomi, commended NAN management for the training initiative.

He said the training would expose the staff to many techniques that would help them in discharging their responsibilities as journalists.

During the training, the reporters were taught fact-checking journalism, fact-checking skills as well as data interpretation.

Olorunyomi, who was also among the resource persons, told the participants that fact-checking helps to build credible information that would serve the good of the people.

He urged reporters to always verify their reports before publishing to ensure their authenticity.

Olorunyomi also said they should imbibe the culture of fact-checking through corroborating reports from the news sources with the reality on the ground.

According to him, fact-checking is part of modern-day journalism practice, adding that fact-checking embodies all the principles of traditional forms of journalism.

Fact checking, he added, can be done either before or after publishing a news report.

He, however, said it was important to spend quality time doing fact checking before sending out the information to the public.

Another resource person, Mr Joshua Olufemi listed tools like Google reverse and image search among others as information and image verifying tools to authenticate images, reports and data.

Olufemi, a Programme Director in Premium Times, said it was important for journalists to carry out a fact check on any image, duplication of images and pictures on the internet.

NAN reports that the training programme was designed to make journalists understand the principles governing fact checking.

It was also designed to make journalists become versatile in various areas of fact-checking.

Some of the topics presented by the facilitators included a brief history of fact checking, elements of fact-checking, reporting versus fact checking, misinformation, ecosystem, rumours, hoaxes and propaganda among others.

The two-day training programme is expected to end on Friday.