Nigerian journalists have been charged to uphold the ethics of the profession and report objectively to ensure the survival of the country’s democracy.
Tell magazine Editor-in-Chief, Ayodele Akinkuotu, made the plea in his keynote address at a three-day investigative reporting training for journalists organised in Abuja by the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR) in partnership with Ford Foundation.
He defined ethics as “a branch of philosophy that deals with morality. It distinguishes what is good from its opposite evil. It clarifies between what is right and wrong in human actions, and between the virtue and the vice in the characteristics of people.”
He referred to one Michael Kunczik, a journalism scholar who argued that ethics is a question about what is good and what is right journalistically.
He also referred to Lanre Idowu, a journalist and founder of Diamond Award for Media Excellence (DAME), who said: “Ethical journalism belongs to the province of providing meaningful reporting that is guided by a sense of propriety.
“It is a professional practice that is guided by observance of agreed rules of engagement and shaped by good taste and conduct.”
Akinkuotu recalled that in 1998, the Nigerian Press Organisation (NPO) ratified a professional code of practice for journalists which declared that “journalism entails a high degree of public trust and to earn and maintain this trust, it is morally imperative for every journalist and every news medium to observe the highest professional and ethical standards.”
He advised journalists to have a healthy regard for public interest, as truth is the cornerstone of journalism and every journalist should ascertain the truth of every event.
Quoting a communication scholar, Wolfgang Donbasch, he added: “The ethics of journalism consists of the seriousness of its efforts to represent the truth. This seriousness on the other hand depends on the ability and readiness to exhaust the possibilities of discovery and to use them in a neutral way.
“A journalist who does not research certain aspects of conflict, depriving a few odd people of the chance to offer their perspectives or who chooses certain figures from a set of statistics which supports his or her view, is not only behaving unprofessionally but also unethically.”
The training acquainted journalists with skills for and risks in investigative reporting.
ICIR board member, Adegboyega Arulogun, urged journalists to “be courageous in reporting. Do not be afraid of SSS (State Security Service). You have to be extremely careful while doing an investigative work.”
The training facilitators included a journalist with The New York Times, Ron Nixon; a Ghanaian undercover journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas; and officials from Investigative Reporters and Editors.