Most media violations such as incitement, defamation, misinformation and disinformation were happening online, the Protection Officer for the Union of Journalists of South Sudan (UJOSS), Johnson Juma, revealed.
Juma expressed the sentiments to Radio Tamazuj after a mobile journalism seminar on Friday in Northern Bahr el-Ghazal State.
More than 25 journalists, civil society representatives and members of the Aweil town community attended the seminar.
“The training is important because the world is going digital and most of the media violations are committed online.
Sidonia Daniel who works with the government-owned Aweil Radio station said the South Sudanese journalists have a responsibility in news collection and dissemination.
“We are tasked to gather and broadcast the news in a factual manner and above all, we need to have verification in every news items so that we can avoid the dissemination of wrong information,” said Daniel.
State-based civil society activist Christopher Anei commended UJOSS for conducting the fight against misinformation and disinformation. He cautioned journalists to be sensitive with corruption-related reports.
“I have learned how to fight and control the wrong information and I have also understood how journalists tackle corruption-related stories, although government officials were targeting them for their reporting,” Anei noted.
David Aguer Dut said the training was fruitful because they had learnt new strategies on information gathering and dissemination and urged all the practising journalists to check their stories before publishing.
“The training was important because we discussed how to disseminate information and how to sensitize people on what is happing. Before you write the story and announce it on radio or any media channel, you need to confirm first from reliable sources,” he said.
The training was sponsored by the Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA).