Africa-Press – Botswana. Government and media houses should come up with strategies to counter misinformation that has become rife with the advent of social media.
This was said by Acting President Slumber Tsogwane on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day commemoration in Gaborone Saturday.
He said the advent of digital technology and social media presented challenges owing to the misuse and abuse of the inventions.
Some people used the inventions to insult and lie about others on social media, said Mr Tsogwane adding that cyberbullying had become the order of the day.
The acting president said journalists should discharge their duty alive to the fact that their allegiance was to society which obliged them to share truthful, accurate and objective information.
Besides presenting a balanced report to the public, journalists should be responsible, he said.
Speaking to the theme; Shaping future of rights, Mr Tsogwane said journalists should ask themselves what rights they were defending before sharing a story that was not based on ethical conduct.
The acting president stressed the need for media practitioners to be ethical which he said covered impartiality, objectivity, balance, privacy and public interest.
That meant the media was an integral part of a democratic dispensation, he said.
Mr Tsogwane assured journalists that Botswana would continue to guarantee constitutional rights such as freedom of assembly and expression of opinion.
Government, he said, guaranteed the protection of essential freedoms such as freedom of expression as enshrined in the Constitution of Botswana, national legislation and international agreements.
Mr Tsogwane said unlike in some parts of the world where reporters operated in hostile situations curtailing their freedom, Botswana had no cases of arbitrary detention and torture of journalists or trade unionists and human rights advocates.
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