By Nnamdi Nwigwe
It is obviously because I belong to the group that is commonly referred to as the media that I return to the subject ever so often. The subject of the media’s role in the polity.
I am very convinced that if we in the media can get our acts together, we can tame the politicians and effectively chart the direction our country should go.
But the group within the media that can accomplish this is very thinly spread across the country, hence their impact is not felt, for now.
A majority of media practitioners in Nigeria today is pathetically innocent of any ideological grooming. As a result, anything and everything goes in their reporting of unfolding events and in their herd instinct in running after politicians.
If we know precisely what our duties and responsibilities to the reading and listening public are, we would get the politicians running after us!
Many practicing journalists do not keep journals that they can refer to in the future and therefore cannot effectively interrogate people in power by calling their attention to what they said at any particular time in the past, particularly at election campaign period.
We go out of our way to deify individuals who truly should be our servants. We compete among ourselves to please them either in our screaming headlines or purported opinion articles and comments that are mere self-seeking Public Relations stuff.
When last did any Chapter of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) organize a press briefing in which political office holders are invited to be grilled on their activities and performance in office?
Must we wait for the approach of a major election before we humour ourselves with the so-called “debates?” Debates that don’t reflect research and investigative engagement of the anchor men and women.
A few wishy washy questions are thrown up that even the politician can afford to brush aside with unrelated answers.
My contention is that nobody in the polity is better positioned to uplift the tone and level of political discourse than the media functionaries.
We in the media have no business, for instance, in broadcasting and publicizing abuses and diatribes of empty political office aspirants who should rather stick to showcasing their programmes and well thought out policies on how to solve the socio-economic problems of the country.
The press must however be sensitive to the natural differences in the lives and cultures of the populace and deliberately strive to water down invectives and diatribes by opinion leaders who inadvertently try to set the country on fire by the wrong use of words.
It is the duty of any responsible media to spike such copies or do effective editing by cropping out words and phrases that are incendiary and add no value to the topic being discussed.
The media should set the scene of placing political players where they should belong. What, for instance, do we mean by describing somebody as “frontrunner,” or “party chieftain?”
Why should the media continue to address or refer to someone as “honourable” long after they had left office as either councillors or members of parliament? Or to continue to refer to retired soldiers by their military ranks such as “General (rtd).” Don’t they have an identity otherwise?
How many of world leaders in politics do we see being referred to by the ranks in which they served in the Forces? Or do we think that many of them hadn’t done service in their own armed forces? If some of these men don’t have any other identity why not “Simply Mr?”
Enough of these superfluous and intimidating appellations for politicians by the Media.
Finally, any journalist who seeks to tell the society the way to go must himself be well equipped and sufficiently grounded in all subjects especially in ideological underpinnings that make him confident and focused in tackling the power brokers and wielders in the polity.
Certainly, a programme of training and re-training of media practitioners will enable them to better hone their skills in readiness to effectively carry out the heavy responsibility on their shoulders.
They cannot continue to be glorified megaphones to politicians.
Nnamdi Nwigwe, a veteran journalist, writes from Owerri
