Africa-Press – Tanzania. JOURNALISTS
have been urged to carry out more research on Covid- 19 and vaccination so that they can provide reliable and useful information to the public about the pandemic.
This was revealed by the Portfolio Manager for the Covid-19 Response in Africa (ARTICLE 19), Mr Moses Opiyo during a multi-stakeholders workshop on Covid-19 response in Tanzania held in Dar es Salaam, this week.
The workshop which brought together 35 participants from the media and CSOs was organised by the Congress of African Journalists (CAJ) in collaboration with Article 19, the European Union and the Journalists Workers Union of Tanzania (JOWUTA).
“The media need to do more fact checking to minimize cases of fake news and misinformation, which tend to undermine people’s trust in the interventions being taken to combat the spread of pandemic,” said Mr Opiyo.
He observed that several measures and response have been instituted by the government towards addressing previous gaps and scaling up the awareness and mobilisation of citizens for uptake of the vaccines due to low levels of awareness among the public.
According to him, there have been cases of fake news and misinformation through social media and other channels which have impacted on people’s response to the measures.
Earlier, Secretary of the Congress of African Journalists (CAJ), Mr Wiliam Oloo, revealed that the outbreak of the pandemic in early 2020 created a major global crisis.
He was of the view that the crisis affected all facets of life and caused major disruptions including the free flow of information and questions of credibility of news and information about the pandemic.
“Response to this reality requires fast and appropriate responses to ensure the flow of accurate information is enhanced to manage the crisis.
As such, the CAJ with its affiliate- Kenya Correspondents Association (KCA)- is working in partnership with Article 19 to implement the project dubbed Covid-19 Response in Africa: Together for Reliable Information” in Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia.
Mr Oloo said the objective of the project is to support in-country advocacy by civil society and media actors towards ensuring conducive legal, policy and operational environment for the provision of reliable and critical information about the Covid-19 pandemic management.
JOWUTA Secretary General Selemani Msuya said the workshop has come at the right time as it aims to embark on the day –to- day roles of journalists who were exposed to great sanitary risks when reporting on the health crisis.
“Journalists in Tanzania like other countries faced challenges in dealing with the pandemic including policy responses and information sharing which have hindered the interventions.
As journalists are not exceptional human beings, some of our media colleagues died out of the so-called respiratory challenges,” he said.
Mr Msuya added that “It should be our motive, to make sure all people in Tanzania, Africa and the world are safe against Covid-19.”
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