The Media Council of Kenya (MCK) has reminded journalists of the critical place of media in promotion and protection of human rights.
MCK Director for Media Training and Development Victor Bwire told North Rift journalists that their role in conflict resolution and peace building remains key world over.
“The media plays a key role in providing the public with credible and non-partisan information, contributing to solution building and mitigating violence. Journalists need to shun propagating negative stereotypes, hate speech and fake news that may result to conflicts”, noted Mr Bwire.
MCK Senior Officer for Training Standards and Curriculum Development Julius Sigei noted that while discussing matters to do with security issues, journalists are supposed to come up with solutions to a given problem.
“Journalists should not just report what different sources of news are saying but should rather ensure they undertake critical analysis to report conflicts in other aspects to reduce tension and harm”, said Mr Sigei.
He urged journalists to make right choice of words used and the need for them to control their emotions while reporting sensitive issues.
MCK Senior Officer for Research Planning and Strategy Jacob Nyongesa noted that fake news has proliferated into traditional media and urged the journalists to remain vigilant.
He encouraged media workers to tap into the opportunities that the Council has created in pursuing media and information literacy to teach their audiences on how to distinguish between reliable, verified information and unverified information, and thus encouraging their audiences to obtain information from independent media.
Equity Afya Medical Officer, Dr. Magare Magare noted that mental health of journalists is an often-over-looked. He took the team through the strategies to reduce the causes and effects of stress while working in conflict affected areas.
The online training targeted Sixty journalists based in the North Rift Counties.