NAN boss assures Palestinian envoy of reporting all sides of story
By Fortune Abang/Hadiza Mohammed
The Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Mr Ali Muhammad Ali, has assured of the Agency’s commitment to objectively report news from all sides.
Ali gave the assurance on Friday when he received the Palestinian Ambassador to Nigeria, Abdullah Shawesh, in his office in Abuja.
According to him, NAN will always report all sides of a story as it is duty bound to do so in line with international best practices.
“We always say there are two sides of stories, not even two, there is your side, there is my side and there is also the truth.
“Now on the conflict in Gaza – ‘Israel-Palestine’ -which has raged for years, some people want the situation heated like that of 75 years ago, during second world war, but we prevented that.
“Unless you are unaware of the historical revolution of the settlers who now turned landlords. As an agency any space where there is injustice, we want to expose it.
“Where there is iniquity, we want to expose it and whatever information made available, we will authenticate it; we will go ahead and report it, we are not tilted to any particular inclination.
“We are aligned with the truth and the truth we believe is the plan for the agency since past decades,” he said.
The managing director said that the mission statement of the agency was to report factually without bias and prejudice, to tell the rest of the world and to report Nigeria to Africans.
He said that equally the agency has a mandate to report Africans to the rest of the world.
“We have offices nationwide and some parts of Africa; we have an office in Johannesburg, South Africa. We also have one in Abidjan and one in Harare, Zimbabwe.
“We are the only resident news agency in the United Nations. The only one from West Africa and we are the leading wire-service from West Africa with the largest workforce, as a news medium.
“The role of the media is to expose corruption, iniquity and injustice; you will find a willing partner in NAN exposing such.
“The media tradition is always on the side of the underdog.
“It has never been in doubt for the media and for an agency like ours that we pride ourselves in authentic reporting factually without prejudice to anyone.
“We are duty bound to report accurately what is going on in Palestine and the whole of the Middle East,” he added.
Speaking, Shawesh said he was at the agency not to seek support, but to ensure balanced reporting of the event on all sides.
“I am not here to seek any support, this is my message to everyone.
“It is very fair, legitimate and human to listen, then you can align yourself; you are going to decide where you will put yourself because in neutrality sometimes mean fully complete.
“Once you listen to us and listen to the other side, you can decide by yourself where you are going to put your shoes, complicity, silence, neutrality, is good, but sometimes listen to us.
“Open your heart, open your ears, open your cameras and listen to us,” Shawesh added. (NAN)(www.nannews.com.ng)
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Edited by Yinusa Ishola/Bayo Sekoni
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