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Citizens
As Journalists
By Uche Nworah It was interesting reading
Reuben Abati and Levi Obijiofor (two of Nigerian Guardian’s
Grade A columnists) on Friday, the 13th of January
2006. Their various takes on the Gbenga Obasanjo/Omoyele Sowore
interview would make good case studies in any journalism class.
While the sparks from the
said interview continue to fly around Nigerian communities
worldwide, the comments of these two veteran journalists deserve
further analysis, especially in the context of global journalism
practice and politics, and also today’s Nigeria – the need
to balance her socio-political interests, the interests of
public officials with the public interest.
From their commentaries,
both writers assumed wrongly that the interviewer (Omoyele
Sowore) is a journalist, and have therefore attempted to apply
journalistic ethos and principles in their analysis, judgement
and condemnation of both The News magazine and Mr Sowore.
However, their various positions and assumptions hardly took
into consideration the pedigree and motive of the interviewer,
an avowed activist who in a recent interview said he was not a
journalist, choosing rather to describe himself as an enemy of
corruption.
Mr Abati in his own
analysis wonders what constitutes a media interview, and asks
–
‘Is
the word “interview” so elastic in journalism practice that
it accommodates eavesdropping, invasion of privacy and abuse of
privilege?, as if on cue, Femi Falana Chambers, the firm of
lawyers retained by The News and Mr Sowore in their reply to an
earlier letter by Gbenga Obasanjo’s lawyers have had to dig
deep inside the dictionary to come up with the meaning of the
word - interview, and have used the same as part of their
defence to deny any wrong doing on the part of their clients.
It is easy to discern the
true motives of Mr Abati and those of other ‘establishment’ paddy-paddy
writers and journalists who have been questioning the mode with
which the interview was obtained, one may be right to assume
that some of these people benefit somehow from the system and
may therefore prefer not to rock the boat, choosing instead to
maintain the status quo, this assumption may not be entirely
wrong if we fully read between the lines of Mr Abati’s
additional analysis - ‘the
danger of the reporter behaving like a local gossip is that
journalists will no longer be trusted. We will lose the
confidence of friends. Once
a journalist shows up, everyone will be under pressure, not
knowing what they will say and it will be reported’.
These views of Mr Abati
hardly does the image of the Nigerian journalist any good, and
gives the impression of a sell - out, it could be misinterpreted
to mean that Nigerian journalists have abandoned their watchdog
and fourth estate of the realm responsibilities. If these so –
called ‘friends’ of the Nigerian journalist, whose
confidence Mr Abati would not like to lose are public officials
and have not soiled their hands in any manner in treasury
looting, then there is no need to be afraid of the journalist.
We constantly clamour for
change in our society but refuse to accept the fact that age-old
dogmas, beliefs and practices may have to give way to new
paradigms. Change has only come to societies where the citizens
will it. It may be as a result of too much of such closeness of
journalists to the executive arm of government, coupled with
other factors that this new
practice of citizen journalism is flourishing in Nigeria.
The advent of the internet
and independent/alternative media have ensured that Nigerian
citizens can now practice their own journalism
from where ever they are, Mr Sowore who conducted the said
interview is one of the many Nigerian citizen journalists, who
are trying their best to fill the void, and make a difference,
something that ‘establishment’ journalists have failed to
do. Desperate times indeed demand desperate measures, and if one
of such measures is to ‘trick’ Gbenga Obasanjo into spilling
the beans on the president’s men, then so be it.
President Richard Nixon of
America wouldn’t have resigned if the likes of Bob Woodward
and Carl Bernstein of the Watergate
fame were only concerned with maintaining the ‘trust and
confidence’ of their friends in government.
There are also other cases
we may look at here, for the sake of argument. Ryan
Parry, a Daily Mirror reporter in the UK working undercover
used false pretences in 2003 to secure employment as a footman
in Buckingham Palace; he did this successfully for 2 months and
exposed the flaws in the security system at the palace. His
effort was commended and led to the improvement of security
protocols at the palace, there was no condemnation of the
methods he employed to break the story, because it was in the
public interest.
Also Mark
Daly, a BBC undercover
reporter joined the Manchester police force with the sole
aim of exposing racism in the police force, and for eight months
filmed his colleagues secretly. The final report (The
Secret Policeman) caused a big scandal in the UK and led to
the resignation of at least 6 police officers who were caught in
the act, Mr Daly went on to receive a human rights award. The
only people that questioned Mr Daly’s methods were the
politicians and those in the establishment who had a lot at
stake, like they say, the guilty are afraid.
It was also disappointing
reading Reuben Abati, a seasoned journalist and Chairman of the
editorial board of the Guardian Newspaper baiting The News
magazine and Mr Sowore (a graduate of geography) to investigate
further, hear him in his own words; ‘I
now challenge them to go a step further and investigate the
allegations made in that famous interview, and check whether
Gbenga Obasanjo is also covered by the defence of truth. The
public will like to know more for example about the Pentascope
deal.’
Meanwhile, Mr Sowore lives
in far away New York, The Rutam House offices of the Guardian
Newspaper is in Oshodi - Lagos, you may now begin to wonder what
Mr Abati and his cub - reporters discuss during their morning
editorial meetings, or is it a case of lack of resources or lack
of will? Why can’t he send some of his many reporters to
conduct the remaining investigations, and then scoop it, as that
will also bring glory to the news organisation, which once
claimed to be the flagship of journalism practice in Nigeria?
Or maybe they still prefer
the armchair
journalism style that one of my journalism lecturers, Dr Callix
Udofia used to describe as he said, she said, choosing instead to feed off the many
contributions and efforts of citizen
journalists on Nigerian internet sites which the
‘establishment’ journalists subtly deride.
Not surprisingly, Mr
Abati’s analysis of the interview continues to generate mixed
reactions, alongside the original interview on internet forums
and pepper soup joints, in one of such forums, a pundit went as
far as alleging that Mr Abati has chosen to pitch his tent and
loyalty where his ‘mouth’ is, and that since his other job
is emceeing events for
the rich and mighty, he wouldn’t want to tinker with such a
secure and regular revenue stream, as against Sowore whose exposé
writing will not in any way affect his day job
working with catholic charity organisations in New York.
With all due respects to
his past journalistic accomplishments but Levi Obijiofor’s
comments regarding the said interview passes him off as a
creature from the past and an enemy of progress. Hear him;
‘The opinions expressed in that interview were clumsy and in
bad taste because never before has the nation experienced the
son of a sitting president expressing, on the pages of the print
media, personal opinions that were designed to pour scorn on the
image of his father’s deputy, and other serving public
officers in the country’.
Maybe someone needs to
remind Mr Obijiofor what generation we are in, this is the
information age, the age of individual freedom, liberty and
public welfare. Why look for precedents or lack of it to justify
Gbenga’s actions?
According to Mr Obijiofor ‘Journalists
who engage in unethical conduct are usually tried by a committee
set up by the relevant press council. In this regard, Gbenga
Obasanjo might consider lodging an official complaint with the
Nigerian Press Council or the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).’
Mr Obijiofor is
already assuming the position of both jury and judge.
His analysis is more
pathetic than Mr Abati’s because he spoke from the two sides
of the mouth, questioning both Gbenga’s character and motives,
and at the same time attacking Mr Sowore with the same ethics
argument. But in so doing, he fell flat on his face because the
Sowore that he is recommending to the NUJ to be sanctioned is
neither a journalist, nor a member of the Nigerian Union of
Journalists (NUJ), he is a citizen
journalist, citizen journalists operate without borders just
like the Medicins Sans
Frontieres (Doctors without borders). So how does he expect
NUJ to sanction somebody that does not operate within its scope?
The Sowore/Gbenga Obasanjo
interview is only an eye opener and an indication of the sign of
things to come, because as the idea of citizen
journalism catches on more in Nigeria, more and more
Nigerians will begin to feel so empowered to pick up their pens
and keyboards and write about the issues that affect them the
most, there is no longer any fear about the mainline media
refusing to publish such alternative views because the
independent internet websites are there to give such views a
right of place.
What really should concern
these two veteran journalists - Mr Obijiofor and his colleague
Mr Abati are the ways to improve the working conditions of the
Nigerian journalist, so as to adequately empower them to be able
to continue to live up to societal expectations in an
increasingly changing and globalized world, if not, the
activities of citizen
journalists like Sowore may cause their honourable
profession to become increasingly irrelevant in Nigeria. Casting
an inward look on the state of the journalism profession in
Nigeria is very much desirable now.
Gbenga Obasanjo in the
said interview remarked thus; ‘One
day, I was at Abeokuta with the Ogun State governor, Gbenga
Daniels; these press guys came in and started asking hard
questions. The moment they were served with food, they left
their scrap papers and rushed the food. Of course the next day,
their reports were very shiny. That’s the way it goes over
here. The press boys are a hungry bunch’.
In their commentaries,
Reuben Abati broached lightly on this serious indictment of the
journalism profession while Levi Obijiofor did not even touch it
at all. Mr Abati’s answer to Gbenga’s allegation seem to
have been made from the corner of a ‘victim’-‘The
sad thing about journalism is that all kinds of persons have
ideas about it, since in any case it is a profession into which
anyone can dabble and start claiming authority’. This
remark has hardly addressed the crises facing the Nigerian
journalist today raised by Gbenga’s comments.
While the debate about
what is in the public interest continues, it must also be
pointed out that people who declare themselves eligible to rule,
are at the same time accepting the fact that a thin line will
separate their private and public lives. Their various
activities become news, rightly and wrongly, they know this from
day one as it is the nature of the game. Goldfish has no hiding
place, especially rotten goldfish. The appetite of the public
and their expectations in this Big Brother age is limitless;
such can only be satisfied by full citizens’ involvement in a
vibrant media landscape and not a docile one.
In recognition of the UK
public’s insatiable desire and appetite for information about
their government, Prime Minister Tony Blair and his government
in addition to the usual information flow and exchanges with the
Whitehall and 10 Downing street press corps recently
experimented with a novel concept,
they allowed Channel 4 black female presenter (June
Sarpong) to follow
the Prime Minister for 24 hours to capture a day in the life
of a British Prime Minister. The documentary will be aired on
the 30th of January 2006.
Would our leaders in
Nigeria ever agree to such a programme, or do they still have
things to hide?
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January 2006. uchenworah@yahoo.com * * *
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posted 15 January 2006 / update 27 June 2008 |
