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The National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) has fined Channels Television, African Independent Television (AIT) and Arise TV N3million each for professional misconduct bordering on coverage of the EndSARS protest and its aftermath.
In addition to the N3m fine on AIT, the broadcast industry regulator said it is likely to revoke the station’s licence over a fake report that the National Ecumenical Centre was set ablaze.
The NBC acting Director General Prof. Armstrong Idachaba who announced the sanction at a press conference in Abuja on Monday said the three stations grossly breached the Nigeria Broadcasting Code in their coverage of the EndSARS crisis by relying on unverified social media reports.
Channels Television, Arise TV and AIT especially continued to transmit footages from unverified and unauthenticated social media sources. The pictures however stimulated anger and heightened the violence that was witnessed during the crisis,” Prof Idachaba said.
He said in a hurry to break the news, the stations engaged in “unprofessional” attitude to relay information to their viewers.
He said their reports of the crisis were speculative and largely inaccurate.
He said: “The National Broadcasting Commission is concerned about the professional misdemeanour of some broadcasting stations in the past couple of days.”
