Peculiar Nigerians Called Journalists
“Most of those in Nigeria who go by the occupational reference of journalists tumble into the calling for want of better things to live by … going about as though they have something against looking well, dressing well and speaking well … turning press conference into money-sharing venture.”
Thoughtful Nigerians cannot help laughing hard when they consider Nigerian journalists. It is hard for them to take Nigerian journalists seriously, since they themselves, the journalists, have refused to take themselves serious. Most of those in Nigeria who go by the occupational reference of journalists tumble into the calling for want of better things to live by, and they mostly don’t know how to regard themselves. Quite a handful of us, for I am a journalist, go about as though we have something against looking well, dressing well and speaking well. We turn press conferences into affairs where money sharing is the most important aspect and asking thoughtful questions the least important. Perhaps the most difficult thing for the typical Nigeria journalist is framing an intelligible question. Where two or three of us gather to interview someone of importance, we irritate the subject by asking inane questions about things that he has already answered in painstaking details.
Others of us approach an interview with pre-conceived notions and questions prepared that we insist on asking, even out of context and regardless of the prevailing situation in which the subject might have already dealt exhaustively with the issue in answer to a previous question or in a prepared introductory remark. But this is the nuisance aspect of it all. The most annoying is the inability of senior journalists, usually editors, to apply any intellectual standard to the operation of news on their desks. Partially, prejudice and outright lack of integrity become the watchword of men and women expected to exercise impartiality, reason and probity in dealing with people’s circumstances. When asked at a recent news conference, Governor Onabanjo said that although he was opposed to the censorship clause in the electoral law, he said that he would like journalists to become more responsible in dealing with issues and personalities. He didn’t use the hackneyed argument of press freedom, though he might have that at the back of his mind, but that he was more concerned that censorship of any kind, from the government, the publisher or the self-censorship by journalists themselves, would in turn lead to all forms of censorship throwing the whole media atmosphere into the jungle where public discourse of any sort would become the prisoner.
Governor Onabanjo’s words in this regard should be taken seriously because he is a journalist of respectable achievements and a leader of the political community hat seems to back the censorship clause. Having said that, Governor Onabanjo expressed dismay at the manner in which most Nigerian journalists regard their calling. He said that we, journalists, don’t seem to know the meaning of fairness, and we all seem to hate the contrary view which be aired if the fairness doctrine is to be upheld. Those who have discussed the censorship clause have invariably blamed the politicians who pushed it through the National Assembly. Any blame on the journalists for creating the atmosphere that necessitated the law has been cursory and shallow. But the journalists and the media for which they work are at the heart of the whole campaign. To be specific, the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) news programmes are the target, and maybe the Daily Times newspaper to a smaller extent. It is difficult to understand what means news at NTA which once stage-managed a composite photo segment for a senator to refute an allegation that he was a mirage more than a real threat to his party which had expelled him.
The NTA network news had the man speaking in the past referring to a subsequent criticism. That was such a foolish thing to do that the question became valid: Do people at NTA think at all? On most evenings, the NTA would lead the news with the president, followed by a segment of the vice-president and then the president of the Senate. It is clear that the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) gets more air time on the NTA than any other party. And the same applies to the Daily Times, and again to a smaller extent. That is why it will be difficult for the war against the censorship law, as odious as it is, to be waged. For someone should tell the opposition parties at the centre and in the various states of the federation what they can do to get equal time and space in the media owned by all the people. Until that answer can come, the censorship law cannot be argued away. “Hell,” says Osborne Elliot who was for a long time the editor of the Newsweek, “knows no fury like the journalist censored.” Yes, those journalists who have self-respect. Not the sort that people Nigerian journalism.
©Sunday Concord, September 5, 1982
(Pp.178-180)
