Be equipped with media literacy to avoid fake news – Minister

By Mashe Umaru Gwamna

The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, has urged public officers to equip themselves with media and information literacy to avoid being vulnerable to misleading content or easily swayed by falsehoods and biased narratives.

This was contained in a press statement signed and issued by

Special Assistant to the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Rabiu Ibrahim .

It said the minister 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 yesterday.

The Minister emphasized that in today’s media-saturated world – where everyone, from PR professionals to CEOs, functions as a spokesperson, the ability to decipher, analyse, and evaluate information is no longer optional but essential.

“Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,

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.

“Lately, due in effect to the lack of media literacy – the inability to analyse and contextualize media content in order to verify authenticity – public officers, and indeed the general public, have become prone to the cankerworm of fake news, misinformation and disinformation,” he said.