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
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