Russia prods Africa to guard against misinformation

From BENNIE MUNDANDO in Crimea

AFRICA, just like any other continent in the world must guard against information distortion through social media and journalists are a key component to ending the scourge, chairman of the regional Bulgarian national cultural autonomy of the Republic of Crimea, Ivan Abajer has said.

Speaking in Yalta yesterday, Mr. Abajer said the advent of cutting edge technology and social media had birthed misinformation whose effect was detrimental to national peace and security and that Governments must ensure that such vices were curbed.

Mr. Abajer said as a result of rampant misinformation, even mainstream media organizations were enticed to tilt towards spreading falsehood either on purpose or inadvertently because of personal interests on certain issues.

He however urged journalists to be factual, balanced, and impartial in their execution of duty by realising that information dissemination had power either to build or destroy but that the later had devastating effects on Governments.

He said the responsibility to ensure that what was portrayed in the media depicted correct information on the issue covered started with journalists who were in the field and that as long as such people refused to respect the fact that they owed objectivity to their audience, that was the begging of the problem.

He cited the sanctions slapped on Crimea as one of the examples in which a misrepresentation of facts by the mainstream media had resulted in the country being disadvantaged and asked journalists to take deep introspection of what they were doing because their profession was a noble one.

“Of course there is rampant information distortion not only on social media, but the mainstream media as well. For example, we have some mainstream media in some European countries which have misrepresented facts about what is happening in Crimea. “We hope that since we have come together in this manner, you will tell your countries the correct situation in this place about the reasons we decided to go back to Russia.

No one pushed us to go back to Russia. It was the decision of the citizens,” Mr. Abajer said.

And chairman of the regional national and cultural autonomy of Crimean Tatars of the Republic of Crimea, Eyvaz Umerov, said ending misinformation in the mainstream media started with journalists themselves by desisting from peddling lids or purposefully misrepresenting facts.

Mr. Umerov said as long as such a bold and responsible step was not taken by journalists, misrepresentation of facts will continue.