Panelists at the 2024 Safety of Journalists Symposium on Saturday called for the protection and improved welfare of journalists to encourage them to carry out their function for the development of society.
The panelists made up of safety officials, media managers and journalists made the call at a session to commemorate the 2024 UNESCO International Day to End Impunity for Crime Against Journalists (IDEI)
Organised by the Media Centre for Promotion of Safety Awareness (MCPoSA), the event was to arouse public consciousness of the need for journalists’ safety.
It was held at the Lagos Chamber of commerce and Industry (LCCI) Alausa Ikeja Lagos.
The theme of the event was “Safety of Journalists in Crises/Emergencies and Role of Risk Assessment in Safety”.
Contributing, the Executive Director, Safety Advocacy and Empowerment Foundation, Mr Jamiu Badmos, described safety as a conscious effort geared toward the elimination of seen and unforeseen circumstances that could lead to human causality and property damage.
Badmos decried the near inhuman workplaces and situations journalists worked in; and tasked media owners and authorities to collaborate to institute a safety regulatory framework to ensure journalists’ safety and welfare.
“Most times newsmen are exposed to war zones, inferno, and other crisis-ridden areas in the cause of the duty.
“Therefore every measure should not be speared in ensuring they are protected and good welfare package such as life insurance policy accorded them for the benefit of their dependents in the case of lost of life,” he said.
Mr Silver Okereke, a journalist, urged journalists to maintain a joint account with their spouses to enable the dependents access to the person’s savings.
Okereke, who was among journalists kidnapped in Abia in 2010, narrated his ordeal with kidnappers in the forest for eight days with barely any food and said that journalists should approach everyday routine carefully to return home safely.
He noted that, his days with the kidnappers made him to made him let his wife access to his account and subscribed to an insurance policy that could safeguard the future of his children in case of any eventuality that could make him not come back.
The Convener of the programme, Dr Chineye Amaechi, said that, the plight of journalists especially those reporting wars at various theatres of conflicts in the world should be of concern to the leaders.
Amaechi, a former journalist with the Champion Newspaper, regretted the petry package paid to journalists as salary which she said most times not paid, called on the media owners to improve the bond package to enable journalist meet their obligations.
She called on the media practitioners to first be their protector by ensuring the were mentally alert to latent insecurity indicators within their sphere of operations.
NAN reports that, the IDEI was set aside after the kidnap and subsequently murder of two French journalists in 2013 in Mali.
