The Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) of the Nasarawa Broadcasting Service (NBS) and Mass Communication lecturer with the Nasarawa State University, Keffi, Awwalu Salihu, has said that Artificial Intelligence (AI) has created a mixed opportunity for journalists to thoroughly fact check and authenticate their reports and information before going to press, to avoid misleading members of the society. In this interview with SOLOMON ATTAH, the veteran journalist and former director at the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), stressed the need for training and retraining of journalists to meet up with the current fast-growing trend, among issues, Excerpts:
We are in an era where technology is the order of the day. What is your take as regard journalists adopting the AI to enhance their reportage?
Well, the AI, as a matter of fact, is the future of the world, because if you are running in a race, and all your colleagues are on a very fast lane, you are running with those that are clocking 120 miles per hour, let’s say in one of these race cars, and then you happen to be in the same race but you are in a sack, you can imagine the rate, the difference in the movement.
It means that you will be so far behind that you will not even know where they have gone, you won’t even meet the dust that they have raised along the way. If you are not also joining the AI system, that is you and your colleagues when you are in a race together, the ones that are with AI or that adopt the AI in their job are like the ones that are using the very fast race cars, while the ones that are not using AI as a means of enhancing their jobs, they are like the ones that are doing the sack race. You are not only running, you are inside a sack and you are trying to run, you know how it is to be as a fun.
So, that’s the difference that we are talking about in a simple illustrative manner that you can see. Now, AI is the future, like I said, and without AI it will be almost impossible for anybody to operate these days as time goes on. Artificial intelligence will help you to cross-check, fact-check your story, it will help you to frame it up and write it properly, put it in a good form that is readable and easy to understand in a journalistic form. It will also help you to address your audiences properly. So, you can see that it is a very important tool that nobody should run away from, because if you run away from it anyway, you will find yourself left behind. So, AI is critical in our time and so every journalist should be able to use those tools that are presented by the artificial intelligence system in order to be able to be there along with the rest.
That is on the one hand. On the other hand, AI also means that you need to learn media literacy, you need to understand what is going on, you need to understand how the system works so that at the end of the day you will not be misled or easily fooled or deceived, because as much as AI is a very good tool for producing your work, it is also a very important and a very powerful toy in the hands of mischievous people that they can use it to create all kinds of illusions and false environments that can actually fool somebody who is not intelligent or who has not been able to have some level of media literacy.
You said that Media literacy is one sure way not to be caught in the web of scammers using AI. How will people, especially those with low level of education understand the working system of AI?
How they will detect really depends on how discerning they are with respect to the kind of information they have. If you are educated, if you have good media literacy background, it will help you to appreciate, when somebody who has basic media literacy will be able to appreciate some of the mischief that people are putting out. Before you even look at what they are doing in the first instance, in the first place you have to be aware of what is going on. If you see any information on the media, you can use the same media literacy tool, the same tool of media literacy, that is the AI tools, like the most common one is the chat-GTP, GPT-IV, or is it Gemini or is it DeepSeek, any one of those ones that you use, will be able to now cross-check the information for you.
Now, if you cross-check an information and it is not verified by other, media tools, then you begin to suspect whether it is true or not. If it is reporting that something has happened, you need to cross-check to verify factually, has that thing actually happened. The most recent task that has faced media literacy users, especially is coming from the aftermath of the Israel-Iran conflict. Suddenly, there is a video that is running amok showing some so-called Israelis who are telling Iran that they are sorry, that they don’t want war, and that, they are sorry. And it’s a subject of debate. Now when you look at it, is it really a true apology from Israelis, or is it created using artificial intelligence. These things can be so smooth and so clear, so the only way you can really catch them out mostly is to verify the information from another source.
If you cannot get the information verified by another source, then you have a problem with that story. Then also, you have to be aware of the things that are happening around that information. And if it’s new information, you have to look at also the probability of it. As a news person, is it probable that this thing happened? If it’s not probable, then you begin to suspect. You just take the normal stages of cross-checking a story to verify whether something is right or wrong. If you cannot reach the actual source of the story, then you have to go through other means to confirm.
Let say there was a plane crash in India. Naturally, such a thing cannot be hidden, it cannot be faked. So, when you look at this, and now try to verify that from other sources and you find it’s on all the general news platforms, it’s also on the formal news channels, then you know it’s true.
So, the important thing about media and AI, is about safeguarding yourself from being scammed or cheated is to be aware of what is going on and to have a good level of good idea about media literacy.
You found yourself back into the media industry after many years of service at the NBC. With your experience over the years, what is your assessment of practitioners in Nasarawa State?
Well, the first thing I would want to say is that they are organised. There’s a lot of discipline among members of the Union in Nasarawa State. The NUJ Chairman and Chairperson of NAWOJ have been very responsible towards other media in the state, and towards the news makers and also towards other journalists. So, I would say there’s a mutual respect among them professionally and there’s order, so you find out that, things are happening in an orderly manner.
But there’s one big problem that needs to be addressed and that is training. There isn’t sufficient training. Media practitioners in the Nasarawa States, like their colleagues in other parts of the country, they need more training.
The industry is moving at light speed, you know, at the speed of light. It’s moving really fast. Things are happening every day. You started this interview with the question of media AI. Okay, it’s fine. But you know, as we are speaking, as we are talking, you can see that even with the AI and things that we are talking about in that respect, you find that, without that education, without the opportunity to learn, it will be very impossible, almost very difficult for them to be able to meet the needs of that industry. Still, the basic idea about how journalism should be conducted; who is a journalist, what is news, what makes news, what are the elements of news, you have to understand those basics before you can even go into it. So, while we are not saying that many of them don’t really understand those basics, but there’s always room for improvement. There’s always room for learning.
Yes, my coming back into the media system in Nasarawa State confirms to me that while there’s a lot of raw material, there’s also the need for a lot of finishing.
You retired in one of the regulatory bodies as a director, an area which you are familiar with. In comparison with the situation then and now, what do you think should be done differently?
First and foremost, I think that the regulatory aspect of news in Nigeria is facing a lot of difficulties, because on the one hand, I see the regulatory arm trying to create and set standards that every journalist is expected to meet, while at the same time, you find that journalists oftentimes, out of ignorance and sometimes out of mischief, would rather go their own way in trying to meet that issue, in trying to adhere to the rules, let’s say, of the broadcast code. Because the broadcast code is a book that contains, for instance, a lot of guidelines and instructions on how journalists are expected to do their job, on how they are expected to behave, on how they are expected to get the job done, and also some of the principles that they must meet, ethical considerations they must give, and all those things are covered, especially in the broadcast industry.
Then, in the NUJ itself, the NUJ constitution and the NUJ book of practice, code of conduct, also covers a lot of these things. But in the NUJ, there is hardly any room for retribution. If somebody breaks the rules, getting him to, you know, the system is really quite weak, and it’s difficult for the leadership of NUJ to enforce when somebody breaks the rules and needs to be…, I don’t like to use the word punished, but needs to be corrected. So, that’s a big problem right there. But in terms of, the other case also is the fact that even the other regulatory body that regulates print has difficulties in that because of the very same nature of our journalism. But the broadcast industry is the one that has really gone a little bit further because it has the broadcast code, which is usually produced in tandem with other broadcasters and all that.
But at the same time, there’s a problem with enforcement. Why am I saying that? Because the code prescribes certain punishments or certain penalties on anybody who breaks, any aspect of the code. But whenever a station is fined, which is part of the provision, then it now becomes a problem.
You might be aware that, as we speak, the case is in court, where some stations have taken NBC to court, and the court has ruled that NBC cannot do certain things that it was doing based on the provisions of the code and the provisions of the law. I am sure that, NBC is also preparing to appeal that. So that fluff in the industry is actually causing a kind of fallback.
What I would think should be done is probably to have a big national conference. I think there should be some kind of a big national conference where we can all look at ourselves and tell ourselves the truth about how things should go. Because this thing, if you look at what’s going on all over the world, you find that the journalistic profession is becoming a laughingstock, you know, of people in the world.
You see things that are happening in the Middle East, and you see the way BBC or CNN or Fox are reporting it. You don’t know. Is it the same thing that I saw on Al Jazeera that these ones are reporting? Or is it the same thing that I’m seeing on other blogs that I’m seeing that these ones are reporting? So you find that there’s so much bias. It’s so obvious that you cannot miss it, the way it’s reported and all that. So political alignment comes in and all that. And I think there’s a need for us in Nigeria to understand that, that kind of path that those ones are following cannot lead us to safety. It will only cause more problems for the industry. There is a need for us to find a means of coming together as an industry to look at a way to assert the independence of the media. so that. no government can interfere; no president can interfere in what the media can do. And then the media itself has to behave responsibly. It has to realize that, first of all, there has to be a country for them to report before they can continue to do their job. Because, if they are irresponsible knowing that our country is a very delicate interaction or intersection of peoples and ideas and thoughts and beliefs and thinking, if our media don’t behave responsibly recognizing those issues between the various forces that make up this country, then if there’s a conflagration, there will be no country for us to report from. And a Nigeria that is not at peace, is a West Africa that is not at peace, and that is the rest of Africa that is not at peace.
There are instances where NBC is allegedly becoming a tool of witchhunting, when certain information for public consumption is not favourable to government?
Well, if you put it on NBC alone then it’s a big problem, because NBC as an organisation has guidelines with which it works. I’ll give you some practical examples from my experience that I’m personally familiar with, I can talk to you about. For instance, let’s recall that, there was a plane crash some time ago in the North central part of Nigeria and in fact the plane was missing for some time and the radar too. And it was an AIT reporter that first discovered the location, which was very fantastic, very brilliant and a plus for the media industry. Albeit, when the reporter was now reporting, he became excited, and was carried away with this great development and started airing live pictures that should not be aired, very gory pictures that have been prohibited by the code of conduct and ethics of the profession. Nowhere in the world do people show that kind of gory pictures. You see decapitated human being, you see pieces of people all over the place. We learned that somebody even recognized her husband’s hand in that report and actually died following that report. But the point I am making is that, the pictures that are being showed were gory, they were not the right pictures at all, and those kinds of things are supposed to be edited and some of those ideas were supposed to be hidden. You are not to show that because, some people will see it and they will get upset and they will not be able to sleep for the rest of the day. That kind of thing is very bad. So, NBC at that time called AIT. AIT? You’ve done a good job meeting this location, but please, you know you are wrong and you shouldn’t be airing those pictures. Instead of complying, the offence continued. Please stop it. Instead of complying the offence continued. Please AIT stop it, it’s not good, the offence continued. Now as a regulator, what are you expected to do. Somebody is breaking the law obviously. What do you do. So, when AIT was fined or sanctioned, I can’t remember the exact first sanctioned anyway, but when AIT was sanctioned at that point, the story changed, they used their own medium of communication to tell the world that, because they have beaten everybody, including the national broadcaster, you know they are being penalised. What about the ethical breach that you’ve committed. Nobody is remembering that, so, you see when you now take a situation like that, the next thing is that, oh! the government failed, because the government failed that’s how AIT is now being sanctioned for finding what the government could not do. So, the whole story was now buried inside that kind of thing. So, that has happened. A lot of times, during my watch when I was there, a lot of times things like that would happen and when you take action to sanction or to draw attention to a breach, then it is politicised and people now attribute it to interference by government. Oh! the government is using them to silence people during elections. For instance, during the Buhari saga, the same kind of thing happened, you know there’s no regulator that is popular, because the regulator is like a policeman and when it’s time for sanctioning, the policeman is always you know not somebody that you want, but it’s only when you are in trouble and the police can save you that’s when you need them, otherwise, you run away. So that’s part of the problem. That is the main issue and it’s easy to blend those kinds of things with what people want to see, but like I said, no system is 100% perfect and so, things could happen according to some of the accusations that have been made, but for me, while I was there, nobody in government has ever called me to say, we want this station to be sanctioned because, they are telling us the wrong thing. Every time there is a sanction and some kind of penalty. The section of the law and section of the code is referred to, which means all those things were there in the law and when you break the law, you find the defense, and the easiest defense is to say government is using them to silenced.
