AllAfrica Group Global Media Chairman Amadou Mahtar Bâ on Saturday stressed the need for journalists to raise their level of knowledge to enlighten citizens on the issues of smoking.
« What interests me is to ask the debate with the specialists and that the journalists can raise their level of knowledge to make papers of fund that the citizens but also the authorities in our countries can know the ins and outs of this question'', he said.
He spoke at the opening of a two-day seminar on the theme ''Understanding the Tobacco Regulatory Environment in Africa: Issues, Perspectives and What Roles for the Media?''
About 50 African journalists, tobacco industry players, anti-smoking organizations and security experts took part in this meeting organized by the AllAfrica Global Media Group, publisher of the site allafrica.com and leader world of electronic distribution of information on Africa.
This seminar is held as a prelude to the next Conference of the Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (COP7) scheduled for 7 at 12 November 2016 in India.
The president of AllAfrica Group Global Media urged journalists ''to go to the bottom of the topics to enlighten the citizens' lantern on the issues that constitute today 
smoking in African countries and in the world''.
''In a context where we are talking more and more about regulation but also about the ban on tobacco, it is important for journalists to be able to take on these fundamental questions for our societies.'' he argued.
Mr Bâ believes that we must break with ''ease'', asking journalists to go beyond rhetoric by focusing on the concepts of reducing the harmfulness of tobacco, prohibiting and marketing tobacco, illicit tobacco trafficking, and so on.
''It is often said that if nothing is done, there will be one billion people who will die of the misdeeds of tobacco in the 21st century'' he warned.
''It is necessary to remain without doing anything. Is it possible to tackle this problem by prohibiting it? Is a much stricter regulation needed?asked Mr. Bâ again.
Source : senego.com
