Nigeria’s Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, has underscored media information literacy as a key instrument to safeguarding public officers from being easily swayed by falsehoods and biased narratives.
The Information Minister, who stated this at the second Spokespersons Summit organised by the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Information and National Orientation in Abuja, also stressed that the ability to analyse, and evaluate information is essential in a media-saturated world where everyone from Public Relations professionals, functions as a spokesperson.
“I want to seize the opportunity of this summit of fellow professionals to draw our attention to the need to brace up and embrace what is called Information and Media Literacy, a composite concept first adopted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in 2008, and which combines the competencies of information literacy and media literacy.
“Today, in a world where everyone is a spokesperson – whether a PR practitioner or a chief executive in the public and private spaces, the imperative for media literacy becomes ever more paramount, as it equips individuals with the tools to decipher, analyse and evaluate messages conveyed through various media channels, enabling the latitude to make informed decisions and engage with media content responsibly”, he said
Idris noted that due to the effect of a lack of media literacy, the inability to analyse and contextualise media content to verify authenticity, public officers, and indeed the general public, have become prone to the cankerworm of fake news, misinformation and disinformation.
“Through media literacy practices, spokespersons can continually enhance their ability to evaluate news articles, identify potential biases, assess the reliability of sources, adopt fact-checking and information verification mechanisms, to enable them to effectively distinguish between accurate reporting and misleading content.”
The Minister also disclosed that in its effort to provide the platform to impart media and information literacy to spokespersons and public officials, the ministry has reached an advanced stage towards the take-off of the UNESCO Media Information Literacy (MIL) Institute – the first of its kind in the world – which will be sited in the precincts of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) in Abuja.
“In fact, I have just returned from Paris, France, where I held a meeting with senior UNESCO officials, in which the impending take-off of the Institute featured prominently,” he stated
Idris equally stated that his ministry, last year, succeeded in the caderisation of Public Relations in the Federal Civil Service in order to deepen professional practice and improve the quality of engagement in the delivery of public communication.
“What this means is that Public Relations has now been designated as a standalone cadre in the Federal Civil Service, with effect from December 2023, and that, what used to be known as the Information Officer Cadre has now been re-designated to ‘Information and Public Relations Officer Cadre’, and ‘Executive Officer (Information and Public Relations)’. Let me add that the NIPR was a key advocate in achieving this enhanced recognition that Public Relations now enjoys within the Federal Civil Service,” he said.
The Minister re-emphasised the commitment of the Tinubu Administration to free speech and responsible creative expression.
“On our part, we will continue to work to broaden our nation’s vibrant media ecosystem and grow the economic and investment opportunities within it,” he said.
The President of NIPR, Ike Neliaku, was commended for introducing an outstanding feature to this year’s Spokespersons Summit, which is the Information Ministerial Clinic, where former Ministers of Information, who served as the Chief Spokespersons of various past governments, would share their experiences in managing the most challenging situations they were confronted while in office.
Comments are closed.