COVID-19: IPC calls for measures to protect journalists

Mon, Mar 23, 2020
By publisher
2 MIN READ

Media

THE International Press Centre, IPC, has called on media proprietors to provide journalists covering the COVID-19 health crisis in Nigeria with necessary protective gadgets and medications were required. Lanre Arogundade, executive director, IPC, noted that journalists are among professionals, who are always on duty during crisis situations as the world is currently witnessing and their safety should, therefore, be accorded very high priority.

Arogundade said in a statement that from the provision of protective wears and adequate supply of basics such as hand sanitizers, nothing can be too much to do for journalists on the field at this moment. According to him, journalists covering COVID-19 also deserve to be placed on a special insurance package.

The IPC director advised journalists to avail themselves of all the health tips on avoiding COVID-19 infection, especially as outlined by the global health bodies and national health institutions. “Journalists should apply necessary caution so as not to expose themselves to avoidable health risk in the understandable urge to cover breaking stories on the pandemic,” he said.

Arogundade charged journalists and other media professionals to exercise professional restraint and ensure that all the breaking stories on COVID-19 are fact-checked to mitigate the spread of false or misleading information.

– Mar. 23, 2020 @ 13:05 GMT |

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