JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

Growing up in the streets of Abeokuta was fun, and spending our holidays in the then federal capital Lagos is the best period of the years. I grew up to know Nigeria as the Giant of Africa and a major supplier of cocoa. Revenues made from oil was not freely shared with the citizens like we have now, though wrongly and corruptly presented nowadays.

Information was freely shared through the print media because its very affordable though it is getting to be a luxury now, no thanks to our government. Very few television stations existed then, and those that existed were regional and few rich states had television stations. The national television was not even widely received.

The print media was the toast of those days, and any story in the news has no doubt. My father then used to send me to get him 5 newspapers with 1 Naira. We sit side by side reading the newspapers, though my primary interest then was the cartoons on back pages. The headlines were not of much interest because we believe its adults news. My father latter picks our land phone and calls his friend in Lagos reviewing the newspapers to him. They argue, laugh and even pray when analyzing what they read in the dailies. This act followed me to the University were i was the only student in ijebu-igbo campus of Ogun State University now Olabisi Onabanjo University on the list of the Local news agent. The list comprises of Pa Abraham Adesanya, the VC of OOU, and other notable citizens of the town.

Journalism and law was a better match than what we have now. Journalist are regarded as the whistle blowers, they are the only reliable police for the masses.

In the military rule, journalists are the only source of reliable news. The federal broadcasting stations are all caged by the Military juntas and their state counterparts are under the control of the state MILADS. Hand full of print media houses existed, and they are mostly situated in Lagos. Freedom of speech was not really free then, and rights of civilians were hindered. There were no bloging, web hosting and other electronic media then.

Democracy brought freedom of expression, and advance in technological growth in Nigeria’s media circle heightened information designation.

The Print media is entrusted with the task of passing reliable and true happenings to the entire populace, they are expected and believed to pass true graphical and text format news and events to us. The print media is not biased and not ethnically oriented. Views of all groups and people are all welcomed and presented in the dailies, there was equal audience to all ethnic groups and criticisms of any aspect of government and people was fairly presented. Journalist were respected and protected by law in the course of their duties. They cover wars, meet with people regarded as enemy of the states without getting hurt or prosecuted under the stipulated law guiding there duties. Journalist have died pursuing the truth and in the course of bringing qualitative and revealing news. Investigate journalism is the spirit of a good journalist and it’s the hallmark of journalism.

The entrance of modern Politics brought the biggest challenge to Journalism. In the Military era we all had a common enemy, and we spoke with one voice in fighting the Military reign which ended eventually after a long fatal and destructive battle. Various journalist were killed an s tortured in the line of duty by the military regimes, lives and properties perished in the struggle.

In present day politics, money is the mandate of our elected leaders and representatives. They have illegally acquired vast wealth that they run the society. Journalism was not left out in the slavery.

Today’s technological advancement in information designation has brought about big competition in the print media, and poorly funded media house finds it hard to survive in the current economic downturn. Politics in Nigeria is an avenue to acquire wealth and power and it come with criticism from the populace, politician use their positions to rub the people and use the media to fight back. Journalist are expect to be liberal and non partisan, they are expected to be fair in reporting issues concerning all political party and are not expected to have sympathy for any party regardless of their own interest or ethnicity. Journalist and media houses are expected to report to the people exactly what they know with no bias, they are the third eye.

What we have now is a new form of journalism where media houses and journalist are used as mouth piece of political parties, and they now work as the public relation officer of the party they benefit more from.

It is stale news that most media houses we have now belong to political bigwigs in Nigeria. This is very common in southwest Nigeria where past and present political post holders are publishers of multi billion media houses, majority of the print media houses belong to serving and retired politicians who use them has the mouth piece of their political party.

In south west Nigeria states, print media houses belong to serving governors, senators, past governors and serving government employees.

Journalists are now at the mercy of politicians to make ends meet, and majority of the mass communication students produced in our ailing tertiary

Institutions will do anything to get a job even if he/she has to lie and write a false story about thier publisher’s opponents.

For example, if you need to read about the excess and damaging reports about the ruling party in the country there are certain newspaper you will buy, and if you need to read about the opposition parties in the country you go for the ruling party’s loyal newspapers.

Political parties in Nigeria are affiliated with one or more media houses, it’s not strange or new that the Action Congress and other groups connected to it have their own medium of attacking the opposition in the form of media houses belonging to their chieftains. A very strong member who doubles as the main financier of Action Congress is reported to own media houses across the south western states of Nigeria. These media outlets are used to destabilize states that are not under their control and also use the media to defend their excess in states controlled by them.

The ruling party PDP enjoys favorable reports and criticism from media houses chaired by its vast and powerful members. Being the largest party in the country and Africa, its members are in every aspect and field of life in the country, its majority population ensures they have a loyalist in every media house and benefits directly and indirectly from the ruling party in form of monetary assistance and favors.

This issue brings the integrity of journalists that work in these organizations to test, are they in the job to make money or for its true course? Has investigative journalism turned to man –must –chop journalism that is popular nowadays?. Most media organization based in the North is ethnic oriented, and they not different from reading newspapers form middle east, this is why they are limited in circulation.

Media house are the war turf for politicians and barrage of lies, character defamation, vilification and smear of oppositions is what comes out of them daily. If you are a follower of the happenings in Ogun State politics, you will notice the unprofessional attitude of our print media. A newspaper that sympathizes with the state came up with a revealing graphics and story about events unfolding in the state, increasing tension in the states politics. Rather than carrying out good investigative journalism like the previous newspaper did, certain Lagos based newspapers on the pay role of the opposition allowed their front pages to be used for leverage. They purposely published super imposed pictures and doctored graphics of one of the principal actors in Ogun state political crisis. My 2 years old son knows that the pictures of the governor in occultist attire that dawn the front page of LIFE newspapers were doctored and not real, even before the owner of the original picture came forward to prove the media house wrong in using her work as a political leverage. Are these people turning the papers into something it ought not to be? Why will a media house allow money to spoil its integrity? And my son will grow up believing every story in Nigerian newspapers is paid for by politicians. Or what do you want him to make of all this money oriented and selfish journalist parading themselves as professional in our country. Paid adverts is the new form of passing information to people by the politicians and it is through this medium that feuding parties talk and attack each other. Pages of newspapers are filled with the projects embarked on by various state governors as if they are favors to the civilians.

This prompted me to ask what is being thought in School of Journalism if it still exists in Ogba? What is the moral ethic of a journalist? Are they made to swear to uphold the law and protect humanity like the lawyers and doctors do when they are about to start their practices? Do we have an independent disciplinary council for journalist like we do in the medical field? Should there not be more strict rules and laws that will prosecute errant journalist that report for material gains? Media houses that publishes unconfirmed and malicious story about people, groups and government should be prosecuted and have their licenses revoked. Publishers of such media organization should be banned from owning media house. The power of money and selfish interest as rubbished journalism in our country, we solely rely on foreign media houses for reliable and authentic news about our country. Its a shame that even out TV stations are subjected to their founders and benefactors. State TV stations are set up to propagate the work of the states they are situated and what we see on them is exactly what the state government wants us to see. Private TV stations are profit oriented and are up for grabs to the highest bidder if nothing the thought of its founder they report issues bothering the highest paying client. They are so sophisticated that they can even air an advert for Niger-Delta militants if the pay is good, and even if the militants are more generous with their loots they can have their vandalisation acts aired live. Presenters of certain political programmes on TV have turned themselves into analyst and professional political consultants. An example is the morning political talk shows on AIT and TVC every day, these presenters delivers the verdict of the discussion before the guest’s even starts debating the issue. There choice of invited analyst is biased and instead of listening and allowing the viewers to hear the analyst talk they interrupt when the speaker is not in line with there own objectives. I singled out TVC and AIT because their political talk shows are meaningless and not beneficial to the viewers, they are biased and it’s very easy to know their political stand in Nigeria, this in not professional.

Thank God for technology we know how professional journalism is done else where. Foreign media are fair in their reports, even to Nigeria’s news they are authentic and non partial.

Recently the TELEGRAPH a British tabloid made public expenses and financial claims of MPs in THE United Kingdom, and it cut across all parties. All party members were thoroughly investigated and their financial claims were made public, which led to resignation of many defaulters among them. This is journalism at its peak, and not money for hand back for ground politics that reigns in the Giant of Africa after Ghana.

Finally, the rule guiding news reporting should be upgraded and it will be nice to see journalist jailed for reporting false news with their publishers too. We can not solely rely of the efficient and always reliable foreign media for information, events like that of Ogun political crisis, Niger-delta crisis and other domestic uprisings are not given adequate coverage though the bit they say about them are more genuine than what we get locally. And the TV stations should learn from SILVERBIRD TV (TODAY ON STV) how to give their viewers a bright and happy morning rather than the harsh Political talk show with angry and frustrated presenters and panel of paid analyst.

Politicians should please release the media captive from their coffers and allow us to enjoy and have our trust in the only and ever available means of proper information designation.