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When journalists err
By Levi Obijiofor
When Nigeria's
broadcast industry regulator -- the National Broadcasting Commission
(NBC) -- rushed to close down Channels Television last week over the
broadcast of an unconfirmed news story concerning President Umaru Musa
Yar'Adua's alleged intention to resign, there was so much outrage in
the public. Public criticism of the NBC action was justified. Tainted
impure
The NBC did not only overstretch its powers by
shutting down a private media organisation before all the facts had
emerged, it also violated the organisation's freedom to operate in a
free marketplace of ideas where truth consistently wrestles with
falsehood. The NBC also showed blatant bias in the fluffy manner it
treated the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), a government-owned news
outfit which ostensibly distributed the unconfirmed news report. As
evidence of NBC's repressive style, some journalists were arrested and
detained. By this action, the NBC infringed on the constitutional
rights of those journalists to a fair hearing. It is irrelevant now to
argue whether or not NAN was the authentic source of the offensive news
report.
By acting to silence a medium of public
information in such an overbearing manner, the NBC management defecated
publicly on Yar'Adua's image as an advocate of the rule of law. Should
these events have happened in a country ruled by a democratically
elected president who projects himself as an apostle of rule of law and
due process? Yar'Adua's silence over the NBC action has cast him and
his government as an anti-thesis of due process and rule of law. A
president who swore to respect and defend the constitution of the
nation cannot watch as an agency of the government destroys the very
philosophical basis of democracy.
The closure of Channels Television, the arrest
and detention of journalists and Yar'Adua's silence over the incidents
show quite clearly the new policy direction of the government. We now
know that Yar'Adua is managing a government of cowboys who are at peace
with "misrule of the law".
Anyone who is familiar with the modus operandi
of the NBC would not have been surprised by the speed with which the
industry regulator shut down Channels Television. Last week's closure
of Channels Television was not the first time the NBC had used
extraordinary and abusive powers to bare its ragged teeth against a
private media organisation.
Shortly after the fatal Bellview air crash in
2005, the NBC moved quickly to close down Africa Independent Television
(AIT) and RayPower FM Stations, both of them owned by Daar
Communications Limited. What cardinal sins did these broadcast channels
commit in 2005? NBC's fatuous reasons were many but they included the
allegation that the two organisations broadcast announcements which
suggested there were no possible survivors in the Bellview crash while
air accident investigators were yet to complete investigations. Also,
the NBC said it had to close the media organisations because the
families of the deceased had not been formally informed.
The NBC also charged the stations for lack of
professionalism in the coverage of the air crash. It claimed the
broadcast stations showed close-up and tasteless footage of the crash
victims' bodies. This particular allegation could be described as
hare-brained because, in one moment of lunacy, the NBC appropriated the
power and moral authority to determine what footage was fit for
broadcast and for public consumption. The NBC should have been reminded
that there is a clear difference between tasteless footage and
unethical conduct. Showing images that are tasteless on television does
not constitute unethical behaviour.
Beyond questions of bullying by the NBC and
appropriateness of news decisions made by media organisations, there
are some serious professional issues that arise from the way Nigerian
journalists relate with new technologies.
There is no doubt that technological advances
have affected the methods journalists use to find and report news. In
the past, journalists relied mostly on their contacts as their news
sources. Reporters were encouraged to initiate direct, face-to-face
contacts with their sources, in order to confirm and re-confirm the
veracity of their stories. However, following the introduction of new
technologies in many newsrooms, tradition has given way to new methods
of journalism practice. One of these is that journalists are
increasingly becoming complacent in their job by relying more on new
technologies rather than making direct contacts with their sources.
In a related sense, American academics Denis Wu
and John Maxwell Hamilton found in a study of 354 foreign
correspondents in the USA that the Internet has compelled reporters to
rely more on their computers than on their traditional or established
news sources. As one of the correspondents mentioned, "the increasing
dependence on the Internet for information will cause journalists to
spend more of their time behind a computer screen instead of getting
out of the office to properly report stories". This is already
happening and it is clearly evident in the way some Nigerian media
organisations report news. Indeed Dean Kruckeberg has argued that
"Emerging use of telecomputer technology as a 'news' medium will
significantly add to the confusion, not only about what constitutes
news, but about who reasonably may be considered a bona fide and
credible journalist."
In Nigeria, Channels Television is not the first
and certainly won't be the last media organisation to lift a news story
directly from fictitious email or web-based information. And it is not
just the lifting of information directly from web sites and email
messages and publishing such information that would continue to
challenge and undermine professional journalism practice. It is also
the fact that media organisations do so without attempting to verify
the claims in email and online-based information. Professionally,
journalists are required to confirm their reports rather than depend on
press releases. In the case of Yar'Adua's alleged intention to resign,
the news organisations should have verified the information from either
the pack of presidential advisers or the appropriate ministers.
My recent study of the Nigerian press coverage
of the Niger Delta conflict showed that journalists tended to lift and
publish, as fact, web-based information about the claims made by the
Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta -- MEND -- against
soldiers and members of the Joint Task Force on the Niger Delta. But,
in many instances, the journalists failed to contact military
authorities in order to confirm the claims made by MEND and other
activists in the region. The study showed that relying on email and
web-based information released by MEND has become a common feature of
the Nigerian press coverage of the conflict.
This mode of reporting is troubling in the sense
that journalists receive information from unidentified activists
through email and web sites and they proceed to publish the information
without crosschecking and verifying the credibility of the source(s)
and the veracity of the claims made by those sources.
There are ethical issues associated with media
reliance on unverified email and web-based information. While new
technologies may have made it possible for journalists to access
information much easier now than before, there are inherent dangers
associated with relying on email or web-based information without
authentication. First, it is difficult to confirm the identity of a
source who sends information to journalists by email or through the
web. Anybody can set up an email address or web site with a pseudonym.
That a piece of information is available on the web or in email does
not mean the information is factual.
The recent experience of journalists working
with Channels Television and the News Agency of Nigeria has shown that
relying on email or web-based messages as factual information can be
misleading. Elizabeth Weise wisely observed in an article in a 1997
edition of the Media Studies Journal that, "The Net is a place of
intrigue, rumor and fabrication. The first time you see one of the
elaborate false reports or supposed trial transcripts that litter the
on-line world, it seems impossible that anyone would spend so much time
creating hoaxes." Shyam Sundar underlined that point in an article in a
1998 edition of Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly: "The
internet has made it possible for gossip and rumour to not only gain
wide circulation but also attain the status of 'news.'"
This is the predicament to which Nigerian
journalists regularly expose themselves whenever they quote information
from email and web-based sources who are largely anonymous. Journalists
who rely on email messages or web-based information without verifying
the authenticity and accuracy of such information are not only
complacent but also do so at the risk of tarnishing their names, the
integrity and the credibility of their news organisations.
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Posted by Robot| 26.09.2008 07:17