The National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) says the commission imposed sanctions on broadcast stations because they were reckless in the coverage of the #EndSARS protests.
Last month, NBC fined media houses including ARISE News, AIT, and Channels TV claiming they used unverifiable video footage from social media to cover the #EndSARS protests.
The Acting Director-General of the NBC, Professor Armstrong Idachaba, during an appearance on ARISE News, said:
We had to impose a sanction because we found out that in the coverage of the #EndSARS campaign that many broadcasters began to be reckless in the coverage of the crisis.
Commending the professionalism displayed by the outfit during the coverage of the protest, Idachaba said the commission witnessed a dramatic turnaround in broadcasters reportage when the protests got violent.
Idachaba stated:
Rather than come up with facts of the issues, we began to see deliberate distortions, manipulated storylines, fake infusions and intrusions into the narrative, graphic presentations that rather than help to reduce the situation more or less aggravated.
We saw spurious claims, misrepresentation of facts and these are in clear violation of the provision of the broadcasting code. We began to wonder at that time whether broadcasters have totally abdicated their ethical requirements.
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Recall that youths across the country staged a protest to press home their demand for an end to police brutality, while also calling for good governance.
Things, however, took an ugly turn as men of the Nigerian Army, on Tuesday, November 20, opened fire on unarmed protesters at the Lekki tollgate, Lagos.
The event of October 20 saw wide criticism of the Federal and Lagos State Governments over the use of force on the protesters who were exercising their right as enshrined in the Nigerian constitution.