Centre urges media to be conflict-sensitive

The International Press Centre (IPC) has stressed the need for journalists to be professional, conflict sensitive and citizen focused in reporting the 2019 elections.

The Director of IPC, Lanre Arogundade, stated this at a workshop on ‘Best practices and professional reporting of the electoral process’ organised by the centre with the support of European Union (EU).

As part of conflict-sensitive reportorial checklist, he highlighted the need to maintain balance, represent as many sides to the political conflict as possible in reports, not to be seen as biased, leave out ethnic and religion identities of victims of violent political conflict in headlines, fact-check and not to turn

opinion into fact.

Also speaking, Professor Umaru Pate of the Faculty of Communication, Bayero University, Kano, noted that conflict sensitivity and avoiding hate speech are imperatives in reporting elections ahead of 2019.