*Photo: Sen. Akpabio*
President of the Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio has counseled online journalists to pay attention to their health, while also calling on the
the Guild of Corporate Online Publishers ( GOCOP) to fashion out plans for health checks for its members.
Akpabio who made the remarks at the 2023 Annual Conference of GOCOP holding in Abuja
said the pressure online journalists go through put their health at risk.
He said “These few days as you confer with one another during this conference, I beg of you to limit your goodselves to News Update, Breaking News, Just In, Developing Story, Happening Now, News Alert and such tags that I know often heightens the blood pressure of any individual.
“The pressure on me as an individual getting this bustle of alerts on my phone indeed heighten my pressure. The pressure could even be worse when the news update is conveying some depressing happenings in our country.
“Now, if there is pressure on me as an individual reading your news updates, breaking news, happening now and such, I can well imagine what happens to the person baking or cooking the news.
“This I know is especially the case with men in the online media space who are always on their computers, phones and other devices to deliver the news, first.
“It is in this regard that I call on you Gentlemen of the press to please monitor your health and do not allow the pressure for ranking and other parameters of performance heighten your blood pressure or compromise your health.”
Why noting that that the primary duty of the media is to provide information that enables society to make informed decisions, Senator Akpabio urged GOCOP members to do their best “to cut off the market for fake news merchants in all its ramifications.”
Drawing from his personal experience, he said “As a political actor, I have severally been the victim of fake news marketed by some sections of the media including some of you here, albeit maybe ignorantly, for example.
“Just a few days ago, an online publication pushed a story that my wife was being given an office in the Senate in a 20 paragraph story. Three of the paragraphs in that story mentioned the issue while the remaining 17 paragraphs were devoted to reciting fables and other mysteries about me that were totally untrue and unconnected.
“Such story ordinarily would have raised my pressure so much but my respected colleagues in the Senate and other reasonable Nigerians reacted so positively in its condemnation as an unwarranted act on the innocent wife of the President of the Senate.
“If I survived, many other Nigerians may not have survived the fake news published by many platforms against my person and offices I have variously held.”
Senator Akpabio added that “When a news platform reports that a government project, say a road has been commissioned, members of the public who read the news may be led to believe that the road is good for travel. However, if it is not true and that the road actually may be laced with death traps, unwary motorists could be led to accidents and deaths.
“That is an example of how fake news kills.
“Indeed, fake news kills faster than the gun. I dare say that fake news can be a channel for mass destruction, hence I urge all of us to treat it (fake news) as a dangerous weapon for the destruction of the society.”
The Senate President invited GOCOP to partner with the National Assembly towards enunciating a legislative framework that can frontally address this malaise of fake news.
He urged that “As you regularly try to fish out the malfeasances among those of us in the political class and other segments of society, I plead with you to also carry out the same self-cleansing exercise by not just identifying the fakes purveyors in your midst, but also by helping the National Assembly to fashion out a framework to curtail this practice.”
Akpabio was represented by his spokesman, Hon. Eseme Eyiboh .