By UJA TEAM Wednesday 30 Oct 2024.
Credible journalism plays a pivotal role as it mirrors out issues of concern to the society with an aim of moving the responsible authorities to find the requisite solutions for them. These include among others; health and social issues. However, it has come under attack by the setback of Mis/Disinformation as getting fueled by the 21st century era of digital/ online/social media platforms’ emergence.
Misinformation according to Merriam Webster Dictionary means incorrect or misleading information, while Disinformation; false information deliberately spread in order to influence the public opinion or obscure the truth.
Clouding the credible journalism flow that is premised on advocacy for public health and social concern solutions is one of the aspects that featured during the African journalists’ Health Media Training Panel Discussion, organized by the Merck Foundation under its Community Awareness Program on Wednesday 30th November 2024, in Dar Es Salaam-Tanzania.
The panel was constituted by selected representatives of journalism umbrella bodies from various African countries including the Uganda Journalists Association (UJA), which was represented by her Secretary General Mr. Emmanuel Kirunda.
Moderated under the topic: How can media be a creative and honest tool to address our sensitive and critical social and health issues on a daily basis, UJA Secretary General Emmanuel Kirunda expressed the need for combating Mis/Disinformation, that has proved to be negatively impacting the advocacy against sensitive critical social and health issues.
“We need to identify first some of the sensitive critical social and health issues at stake if we are to propery respond to the question”, Kirunda said.
He outlined teenage pregnancies, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), increased drug abuse, school dropout, poverty, child marriage, infertility stigma and Gender Based Violence (GBV), as some of the sensitive critical social issues affecting the society, while highlighting infertility, health care financing, mental health disorders, menstrual health, climate change and environmental health like issues of pollution and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as diabetes, cancers, cardio vascular and respiratory diseases, as being some of the sensitive critical health issues.
Kirunda noted that a lot of wrong narratives about sensitive critical social and health issues were being spreading around, saying it should be combated by the media professionals to address sensitive critical social and health issues that affect the public on a daily.
“We are living in an era of Mis/Disinformation where digital media platforms are sporadically spread here and there, now people are taking advantage of flying wrong narratives about things like infertility, GBV, child marriage, diabetes, etc. As the media we should not join them, we should rather combat the same”, He emphasized.
The Uganda Journalists Association Secretary General asked media professionals from the African continent to combat Mis/Disinformation setback by answering the common questions around issues at stake.
The President for Zambia Union of Journalists Mr. Samuel Lukhanda shared thought with Kirunda’s assertion, describing Mis/Disinformation problem as an elephant in the room that needed urgent response before he could challenge the African media professionals to up their game against the same.
Here under is how various African journalist umbrella associations were represented:
1. Mr. Pedro Miguel; Deputy Secretary General; Angolan Journalists Union- Angola.
2. Ms. Gisela Coelho; Vice President- Cabo Verde Journalists Association, Cabo Verde.
3. Mr. JC Coulibaly; President, National Union of Journalists of Cote D’Ivoire (UBJCI), Cote D’Ivoire.
4. Mr. Isso Bolota Roland; President, Assoçiation des Ançiens de CEBS, (AAC), Democratic Rebublic Of the Congo.
5. Ms. Christine Nguku; Director and in charge of Training and Curriculum Development, Media Council of Kenya, Kenya.
6. Ms. Lisa Tenneh Diasay; President, Female Journalists Association of Liberia (FeJAL), Liberia
7. Mr. Moses Kaufa ; Executive Director, Media Council of Malawi- Malawi.
8. Ms. Fateema Capery; Immediate Past Vice President, Media Trust- Mauritius.
9. Mr. Jean-Luc Emile; Managing Editor- Defi Media, Mauritius.
10. Mr. Chris Isiguzo; President, Nigeria Union of Journalists- Nigeria.
11. Ms. Egidie Ingabire; Chairperson of the Rwandan Female Journalists Association (ARFEM), Rwanda.
12. Ms. Khadydiatou Sakho; Secretary General- Association of Journalists for Health and Development- Senegal.
13. Mr. Emmanuel Kirunda; Secretary General- Uganda Journalists Association- Uganda.
14. Mr. Samuel Lukhanda; President- Zambia Union of Journalists -Zambia.
15. Mr. Njabulo Ncube; Director -Zimbabwe Editors Forum -Zimbabwe.
