The Edo State council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) has unveiled plans to set up an intervention team to protect journalists against attacks while discharging their professional duties.

The state chairman of the NUJ, Festus Alenkhe, disclosed this in an address during the World Press Freedom Day celebration.

He explained that the intervention team would help curb attacks on journalists by hoodlums and security agents while carrying out their assignment in a hostile environment.

According to the Edo NUJ chairman, the journalists’ intervention team will consist of personnel drawn from the military, police, SSS, and other security agencies.

Mr Alenkhe called on media owners, employers and the government to provide a conducive atmosphere where media practitioners could operate without molestation.

He decried the casualisation of journalists and called on the government to look into the issue.

In a lecture, ‘Journalism Under Surveillance’, Dan Ekhareafo of the Department of Mass Communications, University of Benin, decried the government’s distrust of the media and official secret acts that inhibit journalists.

Also, erstwhile NUJ state chairman, Godwin Erahon, sought better welfare for journalists.

(NAN)