Senate President charges media men on truth.

The senate president,David Mark has called on media practitioners in the country to crosscheck their facts before publishing and to refrain from acts that will inflame passion or aggravate situations.
He made the call in Umuahia, Abia State while declaring open the senate press corps retreat at the Michael Okpara auditorium.
According to him journalists must uphold the sanctity of truth and refrain from mischief and requested media owners and regulatory agencies to live up to the responsibilities of ensuring objectivity while positing that the media should ponder over its performance.
The senate president said there was need to check the negative tendencies of social media-facebook,twitter etc and the danger it posed to good governance in the country noting that social media has become a threat to good governance.
He was of the view that the media should strengthen the country’s democratic experience and saluted the courage and steadfastness of the Nigerian media.
Speaking at the occasion, the host governor, Chief T. A. Orji thanked the senate president and the senate press corps for coming to see things for themselves and admitted that the perception of Abia state before was bad.
He charged journalists to do their job diligently, avoiding the pull-him-down syndrome and attributed some of the problems the nation is having today to what is reported by media men.
He was of the view that media men have a responsibility to protect good governance and encourage leaders who are not doing well adding that they need to write positively about the country and not embark on constant criticism of those in government.
The senate committee chairman on information, senator Enyinnaya Abaribe in his speech said the choice of Abia for the retreat was to correct erroneous impressions about the state, maintaining that there was need for self examination by the media.
In his speech earlier, the chairman of the senate press corps, Cosmos Ekpunobi explained that after one legislative year, there was need for them to take stock of their performance and project into the future and used the forum to commend the governor for transforming Abia and putting it in the path of growth.