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Tag: media

  • Corruption and the media

    It is obvious that the core value for the establishment of the media has completely changed over the years. Before now, media’s motto was to educate people and bring out the issues in front of the government and compel them to think over them seriously in favour of common man. But the nexus of democracy has empowered media in a very different way. Today, some of the media organisations are behaving selfishly. They are working more as the tool for creating publicity stunt by great politicians, capitalist and other great celebrities. They have lost their power and value and are evolving more as entertainment channels than news channels.

    It is expected that the operation of the media should be in concomitant with the code of ethics of the profession. But today, the fifteen codes of media ethics are being violated. Among the compounding issues that permeated ethical violation in the media is lack of proper care among journalists. In an ideal situation, journalists should be able to compete with some of their friends who hold big position in the government or who are working elsewhere apart from media organisations. However, the opposite seems to be the case.

    It is on record that some of the media practitioners are living a life of hand-to-mouth. Journalists are been sent to cover events from different places without proper care, no money for proper feeding, no good accommodation, lack of gadgets and above all lack of take home package in form of salaries. Some media organisations don’t even pay their staff on time. For Christ sake, how do you expect them to perform their job diligently? When they have not eaten well, their brain is blocked, they are not thinking straight and because of that psychological disposition, they feed  the public with fake news and lies as a result of their inability to do what is called proper investigative journalism.

    There is no doubt that there is corruption in the media. In their day-to-day routine, journalists do take bribes to write or suppress stories, sometimes they are biased, they favour certain politicians over others as the list is endless. This call for the guardians themselves to be guarded; the media cannot have that authority if they themselves are tainted with corruption.

    In order to make ends meet, some journalists naturally find corruption inevitable. A bribe here, an extortion there; a bit of fraud today and a kick-back tomorrow which will keep bread on the table and also ensure that the journalist can afford to pick his bill at the bar every evening after a drink with friends.

    This is very unfortunate as the responsibility of media is not less than the ruling government. As the media is growing in the democracy, they are taking the advantage of democracy for their own benefit. They are becoming selfish and forgetting their work towards the nation.

    Apparently, lack of an efficient legal regulatory framework is possibly part of what fuels corruption in the media today. Even though there are some press laws that prohibit corruption in form of bribery, still the problem is growing at its very best. To be honest, media operations are undermined by the absence of legal mandate that would transform its decisions into categorical imperatives, which would have been more useful.

    To this end, Nigeria’s media will definitely want to get back to the drawing board and assess the direction it is taking. There are those that will need reminding that journalism, beyond being a job or a business, is actually a noble calling, the practice of which must transcend financial or political considerations. And the doctrine of social responsibility needs to be re-birthed in the soul of journalism, if integrity is to return to this profession. Thus, if there is nexus between corruption and the media, who will watch the watchdog?

     

    • By Aondover Eric Msughter

    Department of Mass Communication

    Bayero University, Kano.

    Email: Aondover7@gmail.com

  • Nigerian media aides and the Tantalus plague (2)

    •Mutations of the journalist in the corridors of power

    A notable politician/public officer dismisses fear of backlash over his persistent rape and impregnation of minors. He brags to a friend in Diaspora, in his native dialect translatable thus: “The news is dead on delivery. I have top journalists at my beck and call.” He bragged that he has journalism’s shining lights on a leash of cash. As the mongrel dares extremities for a gift of bone, so do his ‘boys’ in the media, he claimed.

    Predictably, the most senior media aide in the culprit’s pack of hounds spread the cash and killed news of his sex crimes.

    It is only fair that the aide watches helplessly as randy, power-drunk politicians rape his daughters and infect them with gonorrhea, like his principal’s underage victims; by Edumare’s retributive grace. It is only just that Edumare situates the fruit of his loins in similar circumstances, without the luxury of justice. That he might understand agonies of his principal’s victims and their families.

    The media aide is neither conflicted nor appalled. He says: “Na today e dey happen?” (It’s no oddity. It happens). A passion for truth and ethics could never spur him to imperil his job – which he considers a saving grace, his ‘out’ from bleak, thankless Journalism.

    The life of a journalist-turned-media-aide is a parody in which honour plays no part. Unlike other members of his principal’s court, he enjoys no prideful place. He sits on his haunch, like a dog on its paws outside its master’s court. Like the hound, he is forever waiting to lunge, with a kill-cry and bare fangs, at perceived ‘detractors’ of his principal, the dog owner.

    ‘Ki lo ma nse awon boys yii naa?’ (What’s wrong with these boys?), he drones irritably, whenever his former colleagues in the media, subject his principal to harsh scrutiny and objective criticism. He assures his principal – who could be the president, senate president, a state governor, legislative speaker or local government chairman – that the press can be bought over.

    Media aides wrongly assume every news editor, correspondent and  reporter to be manipulable by cash, a foreign trip, a gallon of vegetable oil, Christmas/Ileya ram or a bag of rice, items by which his conscience was sold and bought.

    Thus he gets a generous budget to silence the ‘boys’ and inspire them to ignore the ineptitude and corruption of his principal. Of the bribe allotment, the media aide siphons 70 per cent to his personal account, and splits the remainder among the ‘boys.’

    It never gets old to see the so-called ‘press boys’ scurry for residue of the bribe with dark delight. Rebels against the prevalent rot are daubed unfairly aggressive, biased, sanctimonious or driven by questionable animosity because they have been ‘left out.’

    There is a difference between ‘press boys’ and ‘Gentlemen of the Press.’ The press boy forever prowls, lobbying along the corridors of power in frantic quest to become media aide. A ‘Gentleman of the Press’ however, is a true ethical native. And he exists.

    He understands that the work of a media aide connotes the soul’s struggle against the body. Thus he rejects the role, knowing that as media aide, he would suffer the affliction of languid ethics, insatiable lusts and poisonous glamour, like a courtesan haunted in post-orgasmic flush, by relentless spasms of lust for riches and unearned pleasure. Like fabled Tantalus, his thirst is never quenched.

    Media aides get confused too. Mcenteer calls this condition occupational hazard for those who move from journalism into government, or vice versa. They experience confusion about the role and functions on their new jobs, likewise their colleagues and news audience, seeking information from or about them, their professionalism and evolving identities.

    Reuben Abati for instance, was a notable, venerated critic, celebrated at home and abroad. Yet he suffered irredeemable descent as justifier of ineptitude and political trifles as ex-President Goodluck Jonathan’s Special Adviser on Media Affairs (SAMA).

    Enter Femi Adesina, SAMA to President Muhammadu Buhari. Adesina’s performance as presidential media aide further diminishes the worth of the journalist in the corridors of power. Although his apologists within and outside media circuits justify his indiscretions claiming, “What’s he supposed to do? Would you quit if it were you?”

    Nobody is asking Adesina to quit. Yet it is instructive that a man who used to be a journalist of immense wisdom and worth, at least to those inspired by him, has been reduced to whatever he is currently.

    Adesina’s difficulties vary in character and severity but are classifiable as problems of ethics, irony, conflict, confusion and blur. What if he had vied for the presidency? This couldn’t be preposterous given his once luscious reputation as a thought moulder, manager of men and resources. Sadly, like his predecessors and several lesser aides, he manifested as glowing work of self-sculpture, until his descent into the labyrinth of power, as presidential statuette and every gadfly’s unfinished model.

    Similar ethical dilemma afflict journalists across the seas. Charles Royer suffered unpleasant, public, irony at his election to Seattle City Hall. Before he became American Mayor, Royer attained fame for his nightly 60 to 90-second political commentaries on KING-TV. In 1976, his half-hour documentary, “The Bucks Stop Here,” exposed improper use of special-interest money in the state legislature.

    The programme earned him two national journalism awards. When he became Mayor in 1977, Royer decided to share valuable information with his former press colleagues in off-the-record sessions. But TV crews wanted to bring their cameras into the meetings, against his wishes. Royer eventually showed up on TV and newspaper front pages, shoving TV cameras out. He will forever remember the headline with the photo: “TV Commentator turned Mayor shuts out TV.”

    Another poignant example is Edward R. Murrow, respected radio and TV journalist’s alleged bid to prevent the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)  from airing “Harvest of Shame” soon after he became the head of United States Information Agency. It was one of Murrow’s final documentaries for the CBS network and it revealed the terrible living and working conditions of migrant farm laborers in Florida.

    His attempt however, failed, but leaked to the press thus embarrassing the novice bureaucrat. “Murrow, the government propaganda chief, had tried to censor Murrow, the muckraking journalist,” notes Mcenteer.

    Despite their shortcomings Royer and Murrow served in more ennobling circumstances. Not as glorified errand boys or attack hounds. It is the job of journalist turned media aides to pitilessly offer harsh but constructive criticisms from patriotic and envisaged media perspective, of their principals’ intended policies or actions before they are made public.

    If it is their principals’ wish to transform Nigeria, media aides should help them understand that in heaven, saints don’t become ‘God’ and an angel is nobody in particular.

  • West Africa Media Excellence Awards holds Saturday

    West Africa Media Excellence Awards holds Saturday

    THE maiden edition of the West Africa Media Excellence Awards will hold on Saturday.

    The awards, according to the Executive Director of MFWA, Sulemana Braimah, are intended to inspire and promote excellence in journalism across West Africa by rewarding and honouring journalists from the region, who have distinguished themselves by producing and reporting high quality journalistic pieces that impact positively on society.

    To ensure that determination of stories to be awarded is based on a credible, high-standard and a professional standard, the MFWA has a three-member team of distinguished, experienced and renowned journalists and media experts to serve as judges.

    The judges are:

    Ms. Sophie Ly, an experienced Senegalese journalist, media trainer and media development expert. She presently serves as the Director of the Dakar-based consulting firm, Nexus Groupe.

    Mr. Lanre Idowu, an accomplished and highly respected Nigerian journalist, editor, author, publisher, media owner and trainer. He is well-known for his passion and commitment to quality journalism. He serves as a trustee of the Diamond Awards for Media Excellence and the Nigerian Guild of Editors.

    Ms. Elizabeth Ohene, a veteran Ghanaian journalist.  She worked with the Graphic Communications Group between 1967 and 1982 as a Reporter, Staff Writer, Columnist and Acting Editor of the Daily Graphic and Mirror.

    The competition received more than 400 entries from 12 countries across West Africa. The three-member panel of judges, after a thorough review of all entries, shortlisted 15 finalists for six out of 11 categories.

    The finalists are as follows:

     

    * Oil and Gas Reporting: Justice Baidoo, Multimedia Broadcasting Limited, Ghana; Femi Asu, Punch Newspaper, Nigeria.

     

    * ECOWAS and Regional Integration Reporting: Akinfenwa Ebenezer Olugbenga, The Guardian Newspaper, Nigeria; Shiella Williams, Business Day Newspaper, Ghana.

     

    * Anti-Corruption Reporting: Alagbe Jesusegun, Punch Newspaper, Nigeria and Odimegwu Onwumere, The Nigerian Voice, Nigeria.

     

    * Health Reporting: Kindo Noufou, Burkina 24, Burkina Faso; Agbota Ernest, ORTB Radio Parakou, Benin and Fousseni Saibou, Radio Kanal FM, Togo.

     

    * Human Rights Reporting: Bazie Bassana Jonas, Radio Wat FM, Burkina Faso; Seth Kwame Boateng, Multimedia Broadcasting Limited, Ghana and Sodjago Ankou Mawuegnegan, Senego Senegal.

     

    *Investigative Reporting: Arukaino Umukoro, Punch Newspaper, Nigeria; Ulrich Vital Ahotondji et Romuald Logbo, EducAction, Benin and Manasseh Azure Awuni, Multimedia Broadcasting Limited, Ghana.

     

    Finalists will be hosted at the awards event on Saturday and also participate in the West Africa Media Excellence Conference on Friday, which will feature sessions on topical journalism issues and also provide opportunities for networking with other journalists, editors and experts from West Africa.

    The overall best West African journalist would also be announced at the awards event.

    Winners will receive plaques, certificates and cash prizes. All finalists who are not winners in the various categories will also receive certificates of merit.

    All 15 finalists will also be inducted as fellows of the MFWA’s Journalism for Change Network and will be offered regular training opportunities both locally and internationally to enhance their capacity to influence positive change in society through journalism.

    The award was launched on Wednesday, August 2, 2017 at the Alisa Hotel in Accra, Ghana.

    It was officially launched by Ghana’s Minister for Business Development, Hon. Ibrahim Mohammed Awal. Awal is a journalist by training, former managing director of Ghana’s biggest newspaper organisation, Graphic Communications Group Limited and the publisher of one of Ghana’s leading newspapers, The Finder.

  • Nigerian media aides and the Tantalus plague (1)

    •Mutations of the journalist in the corridors of power

    Man loses wife and three kids to vehicle accident caused by bad road. Media aide justifies governor’s refusal to repair the road, claiming there were more pressing state projects. Aide scornfully dismisses uproar over the incident as negligible tirade of ‘the wailing wailers.’

    It is only fair that the aide suffers the loss of all his children and wife, in similar circumstances, that he might understand the misery of the bereaved father and husband.

    If presidential media aides disdainfully justify government indolence in curbing frequent murder of innocent rural families by northern herdsmen, it is only fair that such aides suffer inexplicable, brazen murder of their loved ones too. That they might understand the insane pain borne by victims of such killings.

    A governor cum phony progressive honours an African president with an obscene N520 million effigy, to the consternation of his impoverished electorate. His media aide justifies the juvenile enterprise even as the governor owes salaries and pensions. It is only fair that the aide experiences divinely imposed hunger and famine of the purse, that he might understand the agony of the state’s starving, elderly pensioners.

    If after experiencing such losses, media aides are able to smile, keep a stiff upper lip and unflinching belief in the ‘fairness, efficiency and honesty’ of their principals, Nigerians may begin to assimilate their illusory gospel of fortitude and hope.

    The contemporary media aide urges you to be happy irrespective of your plight. He advances to dissenters, the illusion of happiness, an attitude akin to David Cooperrider’s “Transformational Positivity.”

    Media aides urge oppressed electorate to embrace their pains and see the world anew, touting obscure and incomprehensible jargon about the power of positive thinking. ‘Nigeria is getting better,’ they urge the citizenry to believe.

    Their admonition would be edifying had they experienced same miseries as the citizenry they request such optimism of. Their smiley gospel of contrived bliss and resignation would be acceptable if they could mount the soapbox and preach so, soon after they lose loved ones to avoidable deaths caused by bad governance by the principals they represent.

    When the citizenry complain of perceived shortcomings of their principals, media aides liken expressed dissent to whimpers and cries of neutered enemies of the state. These days, they simply dub every critic, a ‘wailing wailer.’ For instance, if you criticize the incumbent administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, you must be one of the greedy beneficiaries of immediate past President, Goodluck Jonathan’s corrupt regime.

    If you complain of deaths on the nation’s bad roads, hospital corridors of death, substandard schools, corrupt, overzealous government agency officials , they tell you that Nigeria can’t achieve a sudden resurrection from devastation and sleaze foisted upon her by previous regimes.

    There is no gainsaying that Nigeria currently experiences pangs of a healing process, which requires patience and commitment to the course of positive ‘change.’ It is an open secret however, that the process of rebirth is constantly hobbled by leadership and nemeses enslaved to hubris, nepotism, greed and a god complex.

    The incumbent All Progressives Congress (APC) government expects to be cuddled and patronised while its chieftains and elected officers foists on Nigeria, grotesque governance akin to that imposed on the country by immediate past leadership of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

    No doubt, bad roads and deadly waterways, substandard education and healthcare, depressive economy and unemployment , insecurity and untimely death, still constitute the greatest assault on the populace by the ruling class.

    The citizenry’s deadliest  aggressor, however, are journalists turned media aides in the corridors of power. They are like Spenser’s genitally deformed Duessa to the ruling class’ misshapen phallus.

    From the presidential villa and state houses, to lower public service ministries, journalists mutate into modern versions of the whore of Babylon. Like Spenser’s Acrasia, Phaedria, Malecasta, Duessa and Hellenore, they foster the triumph of predatory government over a critical press. While a shrewd few struggle to stay upright and true, a greater number play whore to the ruling class.

    It is instructive to note however, that the Nigerian media aide nurtures variants of lesser aides or attack dogs within and outside his office. While he licks the boot of his principal, his minions jostle for crumbs from his ‘operating budget’ or the largesse he gets from his employer.

    Mongrels to the media aide often function further down the pecking order; they are the thugs and trolls of the traditional and new media. They issue caustic retorts to critics and perceived detractors of the media aide and his principal. A critique of a presidential media aide’s disgraceful sycophancy for instance, attracted sharp retort from one of his thugs.

    Manipulative and exploitative, media aides tirelessly seek to validate humiliation, poverty, pestilence and death foisted upon mostly poor, underprivileged citizenry by their principals.

    But unlike majority of Nigeria’s impoverished who are driven by hunger, tokenism and base sentimentality to justify the callousness of their elected representatives, these ‘Yes-men’ aren’t conditioned so by severe bouts of hunger or affliction by Stockholm Syndrome.

    They are in perfect control of their desires and aspiration to be ‘turned’ and dominated by predatory principals. They are eager to serve and devote their lives to the celebration of evil, in whatever guise, as long as it translates to currency deposits in their bank accounts.

    They are greatly efficient in closed, womblike spaces; the TV studio, compact halls, the boardroom, and State House press halls. These replace the medieval spaces in the bedchamber, groves and caves like the leafy grotto of Homer’s Calypso, where their medieval archetype is captured, seduced, sodomized and infantilized.

    Thus Nigeria’s major affliction besides the archetypal rogue, corrupt journalist includes, Special Advisers on Media Affairs, some State Commissioners for Information, Chief Press Secretaries and Special Assistant on Media Affairs. These ‘Yes-men’ conduct themselves like political Labradors, constantly undergoing psychological entrancement, thus turning their linearity of quest into a Tantalus problem.

    Tantalus, the eternally hungry king in Greek mythology, was condemned to stand in water under a fruit tree. Whenever he tried to drink or eat, the water or fruit receded beyond his reach. Such is the predicament of the media aide. Like his principal, he is ravenous for unearned riches and other vulgar perks. Thus his insatiable appetite for the spoils of office, irrespective of his position at the root of the totem pole.

    Media aides should be pitied. They bring no honour to their work. They are mere errand boys hence their inability to speak truth to power. Before their descent and domestication like yard dogs, some of them struggled to personify the country’s finest press men, critics and leaders of thought. Today, they serve in mortifying circumstances, in capacities unbecoming of patriot-journalists and critics.

  • ‘Media should defend democracy’

    ‘Media should defend democracy’

    Plateau State Governor Simon Lalong has urged the media to be mindful of the  information they send to the public to safeguard peace, security and democracy.

    He gave the advice in Port Harcourt, Rivers State capital, at the executive session of the 13th annual All Nigeria Editors’ Conference (ANEC).

    The 13th ANEC organised by the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE), which held in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, has as its theme: ‘Nigerian Media: Balancing Professionalism, Advocacy and Business.’

    Represented by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mark Longyen, the governor counseled the media to embrace responsible reportage and developmental journalism as their watchword.

    He said: “The media can be very destructive when wrongly used, especially for political vendetta or mischief by the opposition or crisis merchants.”

    The governor noted that the country was passing through serious security threats, noting that journalists have a duty to contribute in dousing the tensions.

    He said: “Journalists should use their pens to safeguard peace, security and democratic governance rather than being used to fan the embers of hate and fueling the fragile peace by what they write.”

    Lalong added: “In this era of global terrorism and insurgency, marauding herdsmen, ethnic militia and a viral Hurricane Maria-like social media, where killings, hate-speech and fake news take centre stage, with uncensored news flying at the speed of light, I urge the Nigerian Guild of Editors to urgently take deliberate steps to curb unbridled media impunity by sanctioning culprits, considering the dangerous implications of such unprofessional acts on the nation’s democracy, peace and security architecture.

    According to him, “imbalance, inaccurate, inadequate or fake information, couched in hate or hatred can before, during or after a conflict, make people desperate, restless and easy to manipulate, thereby culminating in crisis of inadvertent, incalculable and unimaginable monumental proportions.

  • Olubadan urged to check media aide against inflammatory statements

    Olubadan urged to check media aide against inflammatory statements

    A Socio-cultural group, Oyo Development Initiative (ODI), has urged the Olubadan of Ibadan to caution his media aide for allegedly using abusive, derogatory and denigrating words in reaction to issues, especially to elders.

    ODI likened words to eggs, saying when broken, they have no remedial value.

    In a statement at the weekend by its Coordinator, Dr Adesola Okanlawon, the group said verbal aggression and words deployed by the Olubadan’s media aide in the wake of the Oyo State government’s 1959 Olubadan Chieftaincy Declaration review and subsequent elevation of some traditional rulers and chiefs were inflammatory and inciting.

    It noted that such disrespect for elders was unknown to the Yoruba culture and that they was at a variance with the noble role of the palace in the preservation of the people’s culture.

    ODI said such disrespectful and abusive use of language would end up heating up the polity.

    The group recalled that the statement credited to Mr. Adeola Oloko, the former Chief Press Secretary to Governor Rashidi Ladoja and now Media Assistant to the Olubadan, in which he said members of the Ibadan Elders’ Forum were serial liars and opportunists, was one taken too far.

    It said such a statement was unbecoming of a Yoruba man to his elders, adding that his utterances towards the elders on behalf of the palace fell short of moral and cultural standards of the Yoruba concept of “Omoluabi”, the thoroughbred.

    ODI said: “The abusive statements credited to Mr. Oloko against Ibadan elders, traditional chiefs, among others, have not helped in any way to douse the tension but rather escalated the disagreements. We all know that Ibadan people know how to resolve their differences. However, seeds of discord sown through verbal and abusive words, especially against elders, might be irreparable.”

  • NGE, media and democracy

    It is often said that everyone is a leader until tried. Either correct or incorrect, events over the years have proved that the ability to lead, perhaps, a group, corporation or country, is not actually what matters, but the ability to act decisively and take the right steps in moments of challenges, whether  such decision hurts or not.

    Unfortunately, this is the most critical part, and not many have acquainted themselves creditably in this regard. This apparently explains why fingers are steadily pointed at leaders for failures in groups, professions and country, as the case may be.

    While nearly all professions – banking, journalism, medical or legal – and, society or country – whether developed or underdeveloped, have their low moments, what, however, distinguishes a profession or  a country on the right path, perhaps, is consistent self- rediscovery.

    The Nigerian media industry is currently in a bad shape; inability to pay staff salaries, low copy sales, crippling sycophancy, massive shutdown, poor welfare packages, among others have become the new normal. Yet challenging, as that might be, the input of the media in effective performance of any government or society is crucial. Put simply, the media plays strategic roles towards initiating, as well as, ensuring that there are some levels of sanity in the way the political class conduct itself.

    From ages past, the media, though incapable of throwing physical punches or making deadly and bloody impacts in governments, military or civil, in peace or trial times has, in many innumerable ways, toppled governments or changed the way government businesses are conducted by agenda-setting and critical analysis of government policies. More often than not, where the people feel helpless and failed in monitoring the government of the day, the media has always stepped up and helped in looking over its shoulder to ensure it is constantly on its toes and working in the interest of the larger majority and good of nation. That is how powerful the media is, and has been, and reason its place is sacred and enshrined in country’s statutes as the fourth estate of the realm.

    Interestingly, however, while a whole lot is changing in the world today, the media roles have remained constant, though methodologies have widened to include the steadily evolving social media force in addition to the traditional print media electronics. Today, away from being glued  to television screens or flipping through the pages of newspaper, internet based social communication networks such as Facebook, Instagram, twitter, Imo, WhatsApp and others, have since caught the fire, extracting information from a whole gamut of sources around the world and placing same on the world village table.

    No doubt, the advent of the social media has brought with it so much to chew in terms of way and manner information is sourced, and the measure of the value placed on media practitioners. In the last few years, so much has happened in the Nigerian media and, still, almost at the same time that it becomes a huge challenge trying to understand these developments without touching on their negative effects on society. From issues bothering on professionalism to unpaid salaries often running into several months and years; from poor working conditions to lack of training and re-training opportunities; from the near absence of visionary leadership in the newsroom to poor remuneration; from unlawful dismissal of members of staff to compromise of standards, the list goes on and on. But the  worst of all, is the increasing cases of media houses fuelling mediocrity in an attempt to reduce costs, and ultimately reducing the journalists to mere errand boys  and this has seemingly condemned them to survivalist sycophancies, like it or not.

    These, though largely economic, sum up journalism practice in Nigeria. But as always, rather than simply raining as they say, it once more poured hopelessly when recently, a major newspaper, a flagship media organisation, added salt to injury to an already beleaguered industry. The newspaper, seemingly following in the footsteps of other media houses whose relationship with members of staff had gone unchecked by the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), the umbrella body of all journalists, unilaterally disengaged its chunk of correspondents across the states.

    Typical of giving a hopeless situation a quick makeover, the newspaper offered those willing to continue reporting without serious obligations and commitment to it, the chance of freelancing. Interestingly, only a few years ago, journalists, most of whom had been with the company for years, were laid off in a similar shock. A circumstance that was followed by a lockdown with staff over what they considered the company’s warped labour policy.

    But it is not only the newspaper state correspondents that are going through the terrible state; many journalists today are in court over unpaid salaries and unfair dismissal – two recurring issues that have been consistent with the Nigerian media recently. This explains why it has become expedient to set an agenda, especially for Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) members peopled by editors as they look forward to a seminar focusing on balancing professionalism, advocacy and business, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State this week.

    One recalls that the birth of the NGE was lavishly celebrated in the belief that though it is an exclusive club of editors, the group would fill the apparent void left by NUJ as news room leaders, who, more than anything else, are primarily journalists. Today, years on, it remains to be seen how well the NGE has been able to give leadership direction in the Nigerian media beyond high profile meetings with politicians and government officials. But this seminar will potentially provide a moment for sober reflection on the crisis rocking the industry with a view to advancing effective ways through which its glory will be restored, particularly in areas such as minimum capital investment timeline, operational guidelines and enforcement procedures, minimum standard remuneration for journalists, monitoring, among others, so as to arrest the increasing cases of journalists being at the receiving end of the stick, perpetually.

    While it is understandable that a combination of the current economic crunch and the wild-fire influence of the new media have impacted heavily on the traditional media, it has become paramount as it is critical, for the purpose of rescuing the industry from imminent extinction, to dissect, as well as, review the causes of and solutions to the growing slave camps most media companies are fast becoming. But more than anything else, to salvage the speedily fading influence and dignity of the Nigerian journalist.

  • Quit Notice: Sheath your sword, Yoruba leaders tell groups  

    Quit Notice: Sheath your sword, Yoruba leaders tell groups  

    Yoruba Traditional Council in the North has called on warring factions on the quit notice ‎by Arewa Youths Coalition on the Igbos to sheath their swords and approach the issue with all sense of maturity and for nation’s interest.

    The group in a statement signed by its chairman, Ambassador Muhammad Arigbabuwo, called on all Nigerians irrespective of their tribe or religion to intensify prayers for the country’s security and the leaders at all times.

    He commended the role played by different organisations in the North to douse the tension that erupted during the face-off the Arewa Youths and Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).

    “We are happy that the two groups have agreed to come to terms over the issue due to the quick intervention of major stakeholders in Nigeria.

    “Rising from a one day meeting in Kaduna last week, the traditional council noted with joy the quick action of ‎all Northern Governors, Traditional Rulers in the North, Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), Media, Youth Organizations and others.” he added.

    ‎Arigbabuwo, further stated that, “we are particularly happy with the role played by all Nigerians over the issue and we are convinced that the unity of the nation was paramount to everybody and should not be played with.

    “We thanked all security organisations for their proactive action during the face-off, we urge them to continue to serve the country without any bias, because the country will gain a lot if we stand together as one irrespective of tribe of religion.”

    ‎He also appealed to the elder not to relent in their efforts to keep the country together as one indivisible nation.

     

  • Minister: media must avoid divisive contents

    Minister: media must avoid divisive contents

    Minister for Information and Culture Lai Muhammed has expressed fears of the media being used as a vehicle for disintegration rather than unity.

    The minister was worried that the items of disunity, disintegration and hate speeches has continued to dominate broadcast contents.

    According to him, there has been a steady loss of focus in the broadcast industry, from its primary responsibility of fostering unity among citizenry and creating peaceful co-existence, to focusing on programs that promote mutual hatred among citizens.

    The minister spoke yesterday at a one-day summit organised by the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), themed: “Broadcast Content Development and Peaceful Coexistence”, held at Silk Suite, Rayfield Jos, the Plateau State capital.

    Muhammed, who was represented by State Director of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), Mr. Bulus Dabit, said: “Broadcast content in our radios and television is like food we take daily, they are good for nourishing the body, but not all foods are good for the body and soul.

    “If we must eat broadcast items like food, we must eat the healthy ones that nourish the body and soul, not the ones that put us in critical conditions of health.

    “Again, Nigerians crave for information like they crave for love, and there is need to feed them with news contents that will promote love. But unfortunately, the news contents from our radios and televisions in recent times are not healthy for citizens because they are not healthy for our unity and peaceful co-existence as people of one nation and one destiny.”

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • ‘Ways to benefit from new media’

    ‘Ways to benefit from new media’

    The Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, gave the keynote speech at the 10th Jackson Annual Lecture Series organised by the Department of Mass Communication of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, (UNN). The event focused on contemporary issues in the sector. JAMES OJO (400-level Mass Communication) reports.

    The Princess Alexandra Auditorium (PAA) of the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) was packed full for the 10th Jackson Annual Lecture Series organised by the Department of Mass Communication. The event with the theme: The media and ethical puzzles in political reporting in Nigeria, was held in honour of a doyen of Nigerian journalism, Thomas Horatio Jackson, after whom the department was named.

    Jackson, who was Editor of Lagos Weekly Record, died in 1935.

    The event brought journalists, media managers, teachers, scholars and students together to brainstorm  contemporary issues on the field and also chart a way forward amidst challenges facing the first school of journalism in sub-Saharan Africa.

    At the event was the Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, who is an alumnus of the department. Speaking on the topic, New media: A threat or complement to traditional media?, Shehu noted that the new media posed great challenges to the traditional media.

    He said: “As a practitioner in the media enterprise with decades of experience, I know first-hand that the evolution of any new media is a threat to existing one, which is why media professionals rarely enthusiastically welcome new entrants to the enterprise.”

    According to him, the advancement in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) brings about rising numbers of channels of mass communication, thereby putting power in the hands of consumers of media content. He said the contest for relevance and revenue among traditional media practitioners had never been fiercer than it is presently.

    The president’s spokesman, however, pointed out that the competition posed by the new media should be an opportunity for the traditional media to re-strategise and focus on harness more opportunities, stressing that traditional and new media must work in complementary fashion.

    He said: “These same channels which represent avenues for competition simultaneously represent unprecedented opportunity. The challenge is for traditional media players to welcome these new technologies and platforms, and deploy them with a spirit of experimentation and adventure.”

    To achieve this, Shehu said traditional media must develop and adapt to digital applications and technologies, which would give its audiences and communities a voice in their news content.

    In his address, the Head of Department of Mass Communication, Dr Luke Anorue, emphasised the significance of the event, describing it as the department’s “historic event”.

    He said: “Ten is a significant number. It is often seen as a milestone, a symbol of completeness, a standard of measurement, the easiest to recite in multiples, and indeed an indication that a movement has come of age, and is serious. Today, we tell ourselves that we are serious and we have come of age.”

    The HOD used the opportunity to discuss the challenges facing the department, pointing out that the department had been facing dearth of cameras, microphones, audio and video consoles to use in radio and television studios. He added that the department needed a standby generator and a bus to mobilise staff during excursions.

    He said: “What we have as advertising, photojournalism and public relations laboratories are shadows of  good 21st century gadgets. We need a constantly upgraded library, especially an e-library that gives global access not only to books, but also to current journals for our undergraduate and postgraduate students. We need a modern and befitting building for the oldest department of journalism and mass communication in Sub-Saharan Africa.”

    A highpoint of the event was presentation of awards of excellence to Mallam Shehu and the first professor of mass communication produced by the department, Prof Nnayelugo Okoro.