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BY SUNNY A. DAVID
The Anambra State Police Command have cautioned journalists over what it observed as speculative and preemptive reporting of crime-related stories.
It said that rather than reduce tensions and protect public peace in their reports, journalists tend to heat up the already frenzied atmosphere and cause more chaos in their crime stories even when Police didn’t confirm such stories.
The Police Commissioner, CP Chris Owolabi, who gave the caution through the Police Public Relations Officer Mr. Ikenga Tochukwu (DSP) in an exclusive interview with our correspondent, maintained that speculative reporting was more destructive than the picture they wanted to portray in their reportage.
Mr. Owolabi said a case in point was the inherent speculations in the alleged killing of five soldiers at a checkpoint in Ihiala Local Government Area of the State as portrayed in some sections of the media.
He said such reports lacked credence because there was no establishment of the occurrence of such criminal act, rather the reports were based on hearsays because the peddlers of such information did not go to the said crime scene to ascertain the veracity of the content of their reports.
The Police Boss however admonished journalists in the State saying that rather than dwell in armchair journalism, they should make concerted efforts to ascertain the truth in every story especially if it was a crime-related story instead of causing more harm in the polity.
CP Owolabi also alluded to the reports on the alleged burning of the Headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission in Anambra, stressing that in spite of the inflammatory reports, it was discovered that no such thing happened upon investigations.
He appealed to journalists to soft-pedal in reporting crime-related stories, said Anambra State belonged to all and sundry and it would be tantamount to a disservice trying to set the State ablaze with inflammatory reports.
