P.M. News (Lagos)
Tunde Oladunjoye
24 June 2004
opinion
Lagos — As the nation marches forward to year 2007, when another general elections would be held, it is very important for media professionals to set in motion an organ that would provide retrospect for media practice in Nigeria.
Quite commendably, the media had successfully barricaded unpretentious attempts by successive regimes to gag, muzzle and nose-lead the mass media via the Mass Media Council.
However, that is not to say that practitioners cannot on their own create an independent, unbiased ombudsman or a Media Round Table.
The reason for one's clamour is not far-fetched. One, it seems the Nigerian Press Organisation (NPO) constituted by the Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN), Nigeria Guild of Editors (NGE), and the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) is just contented with the Code of Ethics without ensuring compliance. Even, non-journalists are quite aware that the Code of Ethics are mainly observed in its breach.
Two, the media have been subjected to severe bashing from left, right and centre, simply because of the reprehensive acts of many (but not all) reporters, editors and publishers, whose outlook is influenced by sectional, tribal, political, religious, economic, and other interests, which sometimes ridiculously include ego-tripping.
Three, many top politicians and public office holders, especially at the state and federal levels, have and are establishing newspapers and magazines. In the broadcast sector, the battle for license is very intense. While the above development should ordinarily have been heart-warming, the fact that the use to which these establishment would be put to at the time of electioneering proper is easily discernible; calls for caution and makes the founding of a Media Round Table pertinent and inevitable.
When established, the MRT, which would consist of professionals from the media, public relations and advertising industries, would meet regularly to examine media contents and quality, identity, commend and recommend good reportage that promotes professional and ethical standards by practitioners; expose and condemn unethical practices and report to appropriate authorities for sanctions, if need be; and look at other relevant issues to be agreed upon by members.
While it may be said that such body may not have necessary legal backing to take punitive actions, however its morality strength would go a long way. Let us even start by discussion; the rot in the media is being discussed in low, inaudible tones. MRT would throw such discussion open. It is not just enough for the Editors' Guild to declare a state of emergency in the media over unpaid salaries; what happens to the working environment? What about on-the-job training, journalists' rights to collective agreement and partnership among various media organisation?
The signals are already emanating and only a timely intervention by professionals through the instrumentality of MRT could save the media. The consequent manifestation of contests for power among contending socio-political and economic interests would be that if you want to read bad things about a certain politician, his fronts or organisation, you only need to buy a particular newspaper or magazine, or tune in to a particular radio or TV station. Conversely, if you want to read honey-coated reports about a top politician you know what newspaper or magazine to buy, same for the radio or TV station.
No matter the side from which you look at things, the loser in my own straight opinion is the common man/woman who may be unable to see an advertorial coloured as an editorial.
He would see news on products and services carried by the media and would not be able to see through them to realise that they are commercial bulletins from corporate or marketing departments of business organisations. Of course, in that kind of scenario, the interest of the common man/woman is fundamentally non-existent. The common man/woman, perhaps out of justifiable dissatisfaction after seeing the light/lies, would then tend to proclaim: "Don't believe anything you see in the newspapers!" That could be disastrous.
Moneybag politicians that are acquiring radio and TV operating licenses and setting up newspapers and magazines or buying up moribund ones to inject new funds would certainly utilise these media to fester their political nests. The attendant dangers are that such media would likely compromise ethics. Worse still, journalists and non-journalists employed by such organisations with promise of fat salaries would be thrown into the labour market as soon as such politicians actualise their temporary ambition (it has happened before).
Since the last fuel strike, the media (print especially) has been filled with the condemnation of the partial role played by the Nigeria Television Authorities (NTA). Many of the privately-owned mass media are as guilty as the NTA not only during strikes but also in their day-to-day news-gathering and dissemination. When the Centre for Media Education and Networking released its review of media coverage of the July 2003 fuel strike last year, not one medium thought it was worthy of publicising.
One of the critical issues raised was the use of abusive and derogatory language. This sorry trend is still very much in practice. A private radio or television station or print medium which describes Nigerians protesting against fuel hike as "miscreants and hoodlums" is as bad as a government medium that fails to report the protest.
Talk of time efficiency, a radio station in Lagos reported recently that former US President, Ronald Reagan, was battling to save his life at a time the man was as dead as dodo (fried plantain). Condolences were already pouring in, and as the Yoruba would say, if the man (Reagan) was even crawling, he would have arrived in heaven, but the radio station was serving its listeners stale news.
The Week magazine carried a banner headline a few weeks ago on Alhaji Nuhu Ribadu of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC): "Why I Collect Bribe." To one's chagrin, the magazine was only gunning for one's money. The headline when viewed with the contents was outlandish and sensational. You would then wonder why a news magazine would choose that path of a soft sell magazine. The Editorial Suite of the same edition was written as if the editor was writing a personal column for a weekend newspaper. It was appallingly personalised.
The News magazine of this week (21 June, 2004) carries the headline "Go, Obasanjo Go! President's Popularity At Zero Level! While not claiming to be an expert in opinion poll, it is doubtful if there has been anybody anywhere at any time in history whose popularity was at "zero level." Such person's name would have been entered into the Guinness Book of Records.
Of course, any policy of the government that is not accepted by the generality of the people for one reason or the other, would affect the popularity standing of the leader/president, but to emphatically say the popularity is zero is carrying exaggeration to an utterly laughable distance.
With the opinion polls regularly conducted by some Nigerian newspapers on their websites, one was eager to see the results of the polls conducted by The News in this respect.
It was a big disappointment that the nine-page cover story authored by Oluokun Ayorinde was predicated on a radio programme Fact File: "Fact File, an interactive-phone in programme on the morning bell of Nigeria's premier private radio station, Raypower 100.5 FM, usually allows listeners to air their opinion on burning national issues. Last Thursday, the discussion was appropriately on the debilitating national strike, which, according to the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industries, cost the country N40 billion daily.
Participants lashed on the opportunity, flopping the airwaves with anger. Caller after caller, expressed in the most caustic language, their increasing disappointment over the government they had gleefully defied the elements to vote for in 1999.
In the cover story, only one caller during the programme was quoted and he was quoted anonymously. The magazine's readers were not told the number of callers on the programme and if all of them agreed that OBJ should go, how many differed and the various parts of the country they phoned-in from. The need to name callers is even more important as the first thing a caller does on Fact Files is to mention his/her name and from where the caller is calling from.
The editor of The News must have most probably sensed the above shortcomings and directed a vox pop (not opinion poll) to be conducted to back up the cover story and the banner headline. The vox pop itself, however, turned out to be a bungled effort. In a country of about 120 million people, only eleven people (nine men and two women) were spoken to. Out of the eleven interviewees, four are from Enugu, two from Ibadan, two from Abuja, one from, Abakaliki/Ebonyi, while the other two are not credited with any town, city or state.
It is very obvious that this manner of vox pop lacks the creditability to be used as parameter for the popularity of any public office holder at the national level let alone that of the President, Commander-in-Chief. Whatever that is worth doing is worth doing well.
It is the duty of a journalist to remove hate-language from the media. It is even more important in an environment like ours that places real value on names and words, idioms and proverbs. President George W. Bush has evoked serious condemnation from Americans and non-Americans. There is nowhere that the American media has quoted anyone or any group describing George Bush as crazy; not even in Fahrenheit 911.
As Jonathan Friendly puts it: Our journalism sometimes suffers because of reporters who want to be media stars more than they want to uncover good stories. When the push for a career (or other trivial goals) outweighs the hope for public service in newsrooms, good journalism doesn't have a chance." The professionals and veterans within the media industry who owe whatever they are today to the pen pushing profession, must rise up to the challenges of forming an MRT that will constantly monitor, review and report on quality and contents of Nigerian mass media. Only this could save the mass media from self-destruction. However, if the media fails to engage in self-retrospection, one day it may be forced to do give account under the supervision of government officials or people other than journalists.
That unquestionably, will not be palatable.
Tunde Oladunjoye is the Executive Director, Centre for Media Education and Networking.
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