It will take a
political storm like the one released from Ota farm by former President
Olusegun Obasanjo to displace the series of events marking the death of Nelson
Mandela from the pages of Nigerian newspapers. The storm was so powerful it has
arguably created the hottest debate in the polity and overshadowed other
stories.
In this specific
contribution my interest is not in the letter itself, but the debate it has
generated among various media organisations within Nigeria, particularly the
acknowledgement of sources, which I believe has an implication in both the
theory and practice of journalism. I hope students are following the debate
with keen interest because I could see a lot of areas for postgraduate research
which if pursued could contribute greatly in enhancing the quality of
journalism in Nigeria.
Of particular interest
in the debate is the exchange between Premium Times, an online news
outlet, which got the scoop and breaks the story to the world, and newspapers
like the Punch, an old timer in the field of traditional journalism, and
Leadership, another newspaper that is gaining ground in Nigerian
journalism.
Before discussing the
issue of attribution which created the hot exchange between various newspapers,
let me discuss some of the issues observed which would help us in understanding
the underlying issues which contributed in the allegations and counter
allegations between the various news outfits.
The first observation
highlighted by the cold war between these newspapers is the challenge that
online journalism is posing against traditional media. This challenge should
not be seen in a negative way. While newspapers around the world continue to
increase their online presence, the need to satisfy their audiences who rely on
traditional means of communication still consumes their energy.
Online journalists are
dealing with a set of new audiences who are hungry for news, prefer to access
information from the internet and enjoy the interactive nature of the online
news media. Despite the attempt of the online news outlets to break stories and
give their contribution to journalism, there is still skepticism about the
quality of journalism produced on the internet. That skepticism could partially
explain the resistance of the traditional media to acknowledge stories they
sourced from the internet.
I do not think the challenge
posed by the online media will overtake the influence of traditional
newspapers, it will simply require the traditional outlets to change their
business models, which some are doing well, while others are still trying to
adapt. This point was aptly captured by the French newspaper Lemonde
Diplomatique, “that in the history of communications the introduction of new media has never succeeded in chasing out the preceding technologies”.
There are two key noticeable issues which need to be settled in this
debate; lack of aknowledgement of sources and sometimes outright plagiarism,
and secondly how far can you go in acknowledging the sources of the original
story. Ethically speaking all sources of information should be attributed, and
this is in the interest of anyone who lifts a story from a secondary source.
The attribution enhances the credibility of the medium, but it also protects it
from falling into legal disputes should the story be a fabrication or contains
libel or defamation.
On the other hand when a story breaks, as many journalists know, serious
media organisations would always make an effort to explore other angles from
the story in order to make their own mark, but at the same time to outdo their
competitors. Certainly some media organisations would have done that on the
“storm from Ota farm”. I do not see any conflict here, its simply part of basic
ethics to acknowledge the source of the story, and the same is expected from
the media organisation that break the story to acknowledge its competitor,
should it quote a different angle from its competitor.
With all its shortcomings journalism in Nigeria remains one of the most
vibrant in Africa, at least the media is relatively free to bring such issues
of national importance to public domain.
To be continued
2:54
13.03.1435
16.12.2013
No comments:
Post a Comment