NAN-H-
Media
By Aisha Cole
Lagos, Feb. 6, 2018 (NAN) The President, Online Publishers Association of Nigeria (OPAN), Mr Austyn Ogannah, on Tuesday urged members of the association to maintain high standard of reportage.
Ogannah made the plea in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on the sideline of the association’s annual New Media Conference.
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“In OPAN, we set very high standards and we have said that
anyone that wishes to be a part of OPAN must be willing to stand and maintain the very high standards required for media communication and journalism.
“As you are aware, these borders on fairness and accuracy. If you imbibe these two cultures in communication and in the media, you will be fine.
“So, OPAN is a self-regulated body and we encourage all our members to maintain the standard.
“We had an issue where a member of the public do reach out to one of us to say a member’s publication was too harsh on them. It was not like the report was false.
“But he just felt that the report was not as balanced as he taught it would and we sought to clarify that with the publication and the publication thought that they were balanced and fair.
“So those are some of the ways that we engage our members,’’ Ogannah said.
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He described the conference as an avenue to correct some of the issues being played in the new media with the availability of the internet in Nigeria.
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“The New Media As the Fourth Estate in Nigeria. That is the theme of the event but the event is really to present a platform where anyone that is doing business; anyone that has anything to do with the new media.
“This event gives them an opportunity to meet and greet for the first time and also do something that is very important which is to find a way to stop, halt, the eroding credibility of the new media.
“As the space is today; it is so chaotic that people have been using it for things that they should not be using it for. Like blackmailing people and also pushing out fake news.
“So this conference gives us an opportunity to begin to address those issues,“ he said.
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Ogannah, who is also the Publisher of “The Will Media’’, said that the association was registered in 2011 in order to change the narrative and restore the credibility of the new media in the country. (NAN)
AIC/AJA/IS
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Edited by Adeleye Ajayi/Ismail Abdulaziz