The director general of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) Isaq Kawu, has lamented the broadcast of unmediated social media content by broadcast outfits in the country, urging them to refrain from it.
He said this scenario was responsible for last month’s withdrawal of DAAR Communications Limited group licenses.
This was made known to pressmen by the NBC boss at the 6th Edition of the NBC/Yemi Sonde biennial Broadcast Media Stakeholders’ Forum, in University of Ibadan.
The focus was on ‘Social Media Evolution & Conventional Broadcasting, The Nigeria Perspective.’
He lamented the negative impact of social media on information management, said there is a challenge on how to creatively balance the dialectical interface between social media and the conventional, mediated and professionally engaged conventional world of Nigerian Broadcasting.
“The unmediated use of stories from social media platforms, was one of the issues that led the commission to withdraw the network licenses of the DAAR Communications Limited group last month,” He said.
“In recent times, the cry of ‘fake news’ has become commonplace and societal confidence, in even traditional media outlets, has been significantly eroded. Unfortunately, false, misleading, or confusing online content, find their way onto conventional broadcasting platforms as we pointed out at the NBC, in the recent controversy with one of our major licensees. I believe that this stakeholders’ forum offers a very unique opportunity to exhaustively discuss this challenging social phenomenon. The truth is that we cannot ignore social media, nor underrate its impact on the conventional practice of broadcasting,” The DG stressed further.