he Osun state Chief Executive also accused the media of publishing false reports about him and his administration.
He
said his administration has achieved a lot in Osun state, adding that
no matter of falsehood will deter him from developing the state.
Daily Post reports that he said “I
am happy that our state continues to survive in spite of the
mischievous, desperate and malicious contents in some sections of the
media against our government. Unfortunately, media in recent times have
portrayed our government as one of the worst in the country whereas the
reverse is the case.
“Sunday Times in
those days sold 500,000 copies per edition in this country up until 1975
and Sunday Times was so popular that whoever was literate in Nigeria
will want to read it either by borrowing it, buying it or going to the
library. The circulation of all Nigeria newspapers today is less than
300,000, so it should therefore interest us how a nation with increased
population generally, have almost ten time of graduates that we had in
1975 now has the circulation figures we now have. It is therefore
important for us to interrogate the decline in readership.”
Aregbesola also said “If
you ask me, closely watching the economy, the decline is as a result of
credibility gap in our media publications. I want to appeal to our
media people to support the course of disseminating reliable, accurate,
informative and entertaining news. Reports in newspapers have
erroneously portrayed us as a famished state. About this time last year,
it was as if heaven will fall. It was as if the entire world was
collapsing on our state. What churches do normally became an opportunity
to portray us as famine-stricken state. One person even went to the
extent of donating his wardrobe allowance.
“Everything
was made to look as if people are dying on the streets here. Recently, I
still read in our papers that we are owing mountains of salaries, while
the reverse is actually the case. I have decided to ignore such
tantrums. Available records have shown that there is no iota of doubt in
the fact that some media practitioners have demonstrated their hatred
to us through their adamant disposition to falsehood, baseless and
unfounded claims against our noble political voyage.
“I
wonder why they found it difficult to display high sense of commitment
to journalistic ethics and media professional code of conduct despite
the conspicuous realities. The pertinent question is that whether or not
the media assess itself, facts must always be disseminated and
reported, and it is on the basis of this we have always advised the
media experts to support the dissemination of reliable, accurate,
objective, authentic, impersonal, dis-sensational and factual news.
“No
amount of propaganda and condemnation would dissuade us from attaining
economic prosperity just as we are determined to complete all the
ongoing projects before the end of our tenure here. I am not quarreling
with any paper. I only plead for accurate reporting of events. To those
of you who are critical but factual, it is your hard stance that has
kept us on our toes. I want to appeal to the media to be factual in
their reports.”
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