By 
The recent arrest and detention of Yoruba nation activist, Mr. Sunday Adeyemo (a.k.a. Sunday Igbogho) in the Republic of Benin and the media buzz created so far has brought to the fore, the regime of quackery and falsehood in media practice in Nigeria particularly within the social media parlance.
Since the advent of fake news precipitated by easy accessibility to social media platforms by every Tom, Dick and Harry in the name of journalism practice, Nigeria’s media industry has never been the same again.
It is not funny that all manner of bloggers, online publishers have since turned journalism practice in Nigeria into an all comers affairs. “Fly by night” publishers without the basic knowledge, qualification and experience in journalism have since dominated the media space spewing all manner of news to unwary members of the public who prior to the present era, had seen the media as a veritable source of information and education.
It is quite appalling that the traditional mainstream media (newspapers, television, radio) are fast being displaced by the new media in a manner that leaves the average news seeker at the mercy of quacks and fake news disseminators.
How do we explain a situation where there were different versions of stories that largely verged on falsehood? While some publications painted a picture of Beninoise police brutality on Igboho including chaining him like a dog, some others reported of his purported release and subsequent flight to Germany at a time the security agents who arrested him were getting set to arraign him in court? Some even went to the extent that he was found with Benenoise international trvelling passport! Some of the publishers even attributed sources of their stories to people with little or no knowledge of Igboho’s current situation.
It was therefore not surprising for Sunday Igboho’s wife to speak out at the weekend declaring that most of the stories about the husband with respect to the arrest and detention were fake.
The insinuations created by the trending fake news in the social media space on the Igboho’s case are such that what ought to be the true official position remains warped, as quack journalists around work ahead of what the true position is.
Besides the Sunday Igboho’s issue, the regime of quackery and monumental falsehood in the social media space is getting worsened by the day as more online publications are coming on stream with little or no adherence to professionalism. Every online operator is now a journalist of some sort, informing without complying to the ethics of the profession prominent of which is truthfulness, objectivity, accuracy and balancing in story delivery.
The danger inherent in the journalism of falsehood as being promoted in the social media in current times lies in the fact that the once noble profession of journalism is fast diminishing in value as a result of the reign of quacks.
Matters are not helped by the inability of the government to walk its talk with respect to checkmating the fake news syndrome in the country. More quack journalists are on the prowl with more misinforming platforms whose pleasure largely lies on the spread of the stories now on the increase.
SECURITY REPORTERS.com would therefore like to urge the federal government to speedy up the process of checkmating the spread of fake news especially via the social media as anything less would continue to give leverage to the fake journalists to thrive and ignobly so.
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