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Agbese tasks journalists on ethics

By Gbenga Salau
19 October 2015   |   2:11 am
Mr. Dan Agbese has said that for the media to demand integrity from Nigerians then they must take issues of ethics and objectivity very seriously.
Guest Speaker, Mr. Dan Agbese in a handshake with Mrs. Bimbo Oyetunde, Secretary General, Lagos State NUJ Chapter, who stood in for the National President, Nigerian Union of Journalists, Comrade Waheed Odusile, in between is Dr. Tayo Popoola of Department of Mass Communications, University of Lagos.   

Guest Speaker, Mr. Dan Agbese in a handshake with Mrs. Bimbo Oyetunde, Secretary General, Lagos State NUJ Chapter, who stood in for the National President, Nigerian Union of Journalists, Comrade Waheed Odusile, in between is Dr. Tayo Popoola of Department of Mass Communications, University of Lagos.

Mr. Dan Agbese has said that for the media to demand integrity from Nigerians then they must take issues of ethics and objectivity very seriously. He further stated that it is not expected of editors who ignore the ethics of the media to have the integrity to preach the gospel of fairness and objectivity to the rest of the world.

Agbese, who spoke at the 4th Ismail Babatunde Jose Media and Society Lecture, also said the media must understand that all serious-minded professional groups take the trouble to issue a code of ethics to their members because the unethical behaviour of individual members rub off on the entire professional group.

He averred, “The success of professional ethics does not lie in policing the professionals, but by the professionals policing themselves, knowing that their integrity rides on their ethical conduct. Media ethics is a tangled mess in our country. I do not see many reporters and editors trudging the narrow path of fairness, truth and objectivity. There are no crusading editors and publications any more. Many of our publications have simply abandoned investigative reporting. Yes, there are some fitful attempts to pass ordinary stories for investigative pieces. These do not just jell.

“As I see it, ethics or no ethics, we are at the mercy of what the late American president, Richard Nixon, referred in his first inaugural address on January 20, 1969, as the fever of words. Our public officers and their minions whose posturing is encouraged by the media cannot help us build a united country. There is trust deficit in our country and in our media. We must rise to the challenge of recovering the soul of our profession in order to earn public trust.”

Agbese was not happy that the issue of ethics had been greatly eroded in media practice in the country, noting that two negative trends had evolved since the country returned to civil rule despite the issuance of the Code of Ethics by the Nigerian Press Organisation (NPO).

“The first is the great and lucrative award industry in the media. This is strange to journalism because it is wholly and entirely unethical for a medium to give awards to public officers that it reports on. The awards have no integrity because they are tailored to individuals and are not competed for; there are no known criteria by which the winners are judged. The awards are fully and excessively paid for; thus the awards are not given, they are sold and bought by those to whom they are given.

“Mercifully, the rash of awards wherever two or three journalists were gathered has died down somewhat; the NPO has worked hard to annul them. Aviation and ports beat reporters and others no longer give these dubious awards but some of the newspapers still do.

“What is the objective of these so-called awards? Is it to encourage public officers who are doing well to do more and help pull the laggards up by their boot straps? I suggest the shame of it is that there is neither rhyme nor reason for these awards. If any, they impugn the integrity of the publications concerned and put a huge question mark on the integrity of the profession itself.

“In the run up to the 2015 general elections, all state governors were given various awards as performing governors. Yet, most of them misused the state resources in such a way that they could not pay their civil servants. One newspaper awarded the then outgoing governor of Katsina State, Alhaji Ibrahim Shema, what it called ‘exit award.’ Pray, what is that? I know of nowhere in the world where the media reward public officers in this way. It is the nadir of unethical conduct peculiar to Nigeria and Nigerians.

“The real shock about these expensive but dubious awards is that the foolishness and the vanity of our public officers who are anxious for media endorsement make this obnoxious industry thrive. The award industry stains the banner of professionalism and rubbishes the ethical and the moral integrity of journalists and their publications.

“In saying this, I do not wish to pretend that I did not know that the awards are money-spinners for the publications that indulge in them. I am also fully aware of the pressure on the media to do well by their staff. Nor can I pretend not to know that their desperate financial situation drove some of the newspapers and magazines into engaging in creative but unorthodox means of survival.

“Could this explain Governor Ayo Fayose’s notorious wrap around published by some newspapers but rejected by others? Advertisements are not, strictly, the business of editors. But advertisements too must conform to the minimum ethical standards for decency and fairness. A libel arising from advertisements is actionable. The aggrieved sues the editor and his publication.”

Agbese noted that though the dilemma the media is facing must be recognised in terms of generating revenue to remain afloat because a newspaper must survive before it can live by the tenets of its professional code of ethics.

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