The International Press Centre (IPC)has urged the media to consciously include and engage more women, female politicians, and under-represented groups as voices/sources in election reporting.

The call is contained in the recommendation by the IPC following the October and November media monitoring report by the center.

Speaking at a one-day stakeholders meeting, Mr. Lanre Arogundade, Executive Director of IPC, said in view of the observations and findings from the 15 print/online newspapers in November 2022, the print and online newspapers should consciously include and engage more women, female politicians in election reporting.

“Additionally prominence should be given to their issues by being made headline stories and regularly featured on the front pages.

“The print and online newspapers should not make the headlines and front pages the exclusive preserve of just two political parties.

“They should strive to give the other parties and candidates the same opportunity in line with the requirements of equal or equitable access in the Electoral Act 2022 and the Nigerian Media Code of Election Coverage (revised edition 2022).”

The IPC executive director also said that the print and online newspapers should avoid being used or being seen as instruments of settling political personal scores by political gladiators by refraining from using abusive words by candidates against their opponents in their reports, desisting from sensational, inciting and misleading headlines.

He added that the print and online newspapers should accord priority to issues of public interest in their electoral reports and adhere strictly to the facts of electoral issues in line with the professional and ethical requirements of factual accuracy

“The print and online newspapers should strive to comply with the frameworks governing the media coverage of elections including the Electoral Act, 2022 and the Nigerian Media Code of Election Coverage (revised edition 2022).

“The print and online newspapers should avoid falling into the trap of
disinformation and misinformation by doing real-time fact-checking of claims by politicians and exercising the discipline of verification”, he added.

He further recommended that the menus on the INEC website be regularly updated so that outdated information like news items and policies pertaining to previous elections, which were irrelevant or have been overtaken by the provisions of the new electoral Act were expunged.

“The INEC news menu @ https://inecnews.com/ should be populated with more real-time news items.

“INEC should step up its engagement with the electorates in terms of information dissemination, especially on its Twitter handles”, he further said.

Earlier, Arogundade said that the meeting was pursuant to the aims and objectives of Component IV: Support to Media of EU-SDGN II project being implemented by IPC (lead partner) and the Institute for Media and Society (IMS).

This, he said, is to enhance the Nigerian media’s role in promoting democratic governance through Fair, Accurate, Ethical and Inclusive Coverage of Electoral Processes and Elections in Nigeria.

The executive director explained that the overall goal, therefore, of the gamut of activities under the project included but was not limited to capacity building for journalists on issue focussed, factually accurate, and conflict-sensitive reporting of elections.

“Capacity building for female candidates on strategic communications and media use and engagements on countering disinformation and misinformation, are designed to ensure that journalists and their news mediums pay maximum attention to ethics, professionalism, and inclusivity.

“, This is because such help facilitates credible elections, without which democracy cannot be consolidated”, he explained.

He added that in presenting the monitoring reports and the revised Media Code of Election Coverage, the occasion would afford an opportunity to assess how well the media have so far fared in the performance of their duties and obligations.

“Among others, monitoring helps to measure the amount of professionalism, ethical compliance, and access to parties and candidates.

“This is especially in the context of the guidelines provided by the relevant frameworks that govern media's role at elections including the Electoral law, statutory regulations such as the Nigeria Broadcasting Code, and self-regulatory like the Media Code of Election Coverage.

“In view of the importance of the exercise, IPC has over the election cycles always monitored media coverage and reportage of elections,” he said.