There is urgent need for the Nigerian media to go beyond mere rhetoric and fight for the restoration of the freedom of the press which has been denied by the government, Professor Ayo Olukotun has declared.
This is as the political scientist and media scholar warned that it was not in the interest of the country and those in government to persecute the media in view of its importance to national growth.
Olukotun spoke against the backdrop of the increasing wave of the harassment and intimidation suffered by the media in the country in recent time at “Stakeholders forum on Journalists Safety and Press Freedom Limitation in Nigeria,” organised by the International Press Centre, IPC, on Wednesday.
Mr. Lanre Arogundade is the Executive Director of IPC.
Olukotun said it was unfortunate that harassment and intimidation suffered by journalists from different angles had continued to increase, making Nigeria to be one of the countries with highest cases of press freedom denial.
His words: “The Nigeria media is vibrant, robust, but it is one of the most repressed in the world…
“The freedom we used to enjoy is deteriorating and unless we cry foul now, it may be too late to cry. So, protests, civil agitation are in order to strengthen democracy.”
Olukotun said beyond just complaining, “we need advocacy journalism that advertises and markets the good society.”
As a part of efforts to win back press freedom in the country, the professor called for an amendment of the constitution with a view to expunge the claw back clauses which had made the freedom of the press as enshrined in it not possible.
“All the clauses which take back the freedom of the press from the constitution should be expunged,” he said.
He emphasised that journalists should uphold the value of dignity, network widely and penetrate the government through lobbying in order to achieve the desired goal in ensuring press freedom.
He argued that it would amount to day-dreaming to think that by merely shouting, the press freedom the media used to enjoy would be restored.
The major part of the event was the presentation of the “Survey Report on Safety of Journalist and Press Freedom in Nigeria by IPC.”
In the document, the suggestions made on ensuring safety of journalists and press freedom include the need to set up a safety help-desk for Nigerian journalists by International Press Centre (IPC); need to set up a foundation to manage a special fund to assist victimized journalists in overcoming the trauma of victimization and improved synergy of activities between media NGOs and media professional groups to address concerns relating to safety of journalists.
Excerpts read:
Background
The Survey on Safety of Journalists and Press Freedom in Nigeria is a component of three-year project on Safety Awareness, Impactful Reporting of Communities and Improved Institutional Capacity being implemented by International Press Centre (IPC) in partnership with Open Society Foundation (OSF). The survey seeks to broaden the scope and frontiers of efforts aimed at improving the safety of journalists in Nigeria as well as to stimulate and consolidate environment conducive to press freedom. The survey undertake evaluation of prevailing situation under which journalists and media professionals perform their constitutional responsibilities with regards to existing and emerging challenges that infringe on the freedom of the press. The survey targeted media stakeholders for inputs that could help sustain engagements on safety of journalists as well as in generating consensus relevant for benchmarking standard of press freedom in Nigeria.
The survey targeted journalists in the print, broadcast as well as online media as well as academics, professional groups and media-based non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
Qualitative method of gathering data was deployed to engage respondents with a number of issues aimed at evaluating existing scope of knowledge and experience on safety of journalists and press freedom. This data gathering method was deployed across the print, broadcast, online, academics, media professional platform as well as NGOs through (a) administration of questionnaires with monkey survey instrument; an online device and (b) structured interviews with select key informants.
The survey focused on evaluating (i) perception of stakeholders on prevailing state of safety of journalists and press freedom; (ii) the critical issues and concerns to journalists namely threats, harassment and brutality, molestation by thugs and others violent agents, hostility of the environment as well as arbitrary arrest and detention; (iii) prevailing environment as it relates to press freedom; adequacy and access to safety information; (iv) access to platforms on safety information; (v) adequacy and accessibility of existing safety measures for journalists; commitment of media organisations to information relating to journalists’ safety; (vi) institutional mechanism or intervention with regards to safety of journalists (legal, professional, social, financial, healthcare); (vii) gender specific issues relating to safety of journalists and press freedom; (viii) consequences of threats and insecurity on news coverage and reportage; and (ix) stakeholders’ expectations for capacity building to improve knowledge and skills in response to concerns for safety and enhancement of environment conducive for press freedom; (x) consequence of threats to safety of journalists on news coverage, reportage, objectivity, balance and fairness and professionalism
Findings
The outcome of the survey indicates that a number of safety related issues are of serious concern to journalists and other media professionals in Nigeria. Respondents overwhelmingly affirmed that press freedom in Nigeria is encumbered by individual and collective safety challenges for journalists with consequence negatively impacts on the journalism profession. The structure of media ownership in Nigeria fuels institutional encumbrances across all categories of media organisations to the extent that commitments of media managers to safety concerns could not be guaranteed. The survey revealed that unfavourable working environment which manifest in poor remuneration, delayed/unpaid salaries as well as poor welfare packages and incentives constitute dominant concerns that aggravate insecurity in the profession of journalism.
Conclusions and Recommendations
The prevailing hostile environment that is not conducive for journalism profession at the level of the society and individual organisations compound the capacity challenge of journalists; individually and collectively. A key conclusion therefore is that an improvement in the working environment of journalists would, to a large extent, guarantee safety and press freedom. Whereas safety poses concerns to average Nigerian journalists on a daily basis; requiring urgent measure, the dominant challenge however is the dearth of requisite information and resources (human and materials) leading to the pervasive and more often compelling fears and uncertainties in the journalism profession. However, in spite of the gamut of challenges that are prevalent, there are yet enormous potentials within the purviews of media organisations and other platforms of media stakeholders that could be leveraged upon to improve safety of journalists and to guarantee better environment of press freedom. Notwithstanding that these challenges serve as disincentive for insecurity of journalists, stakeholders however identified a number of measures that could help improve environment which undermines safety and press freedom in Nigeria. In addition to identified intervention by stakeholders across media platforms, the following are recommended to further guarantee safety of journalists and enhance the environment of press freedom in Nigeria:
- Inter-agency collaboration between media professional bodies and the academic to regularly review and update situation on journalists’ safety and press freedom.
- Regular training and retraining of journalists on safety and press freedom related issues.
- Setting up a safety help-desk for Nigerian journalists by International Press Centre (IPC).
- Setting up a foundation to manage a special fund to assist victimized journalists in overcoming the trauma of victimisation.
- Institutional assistance to help journalist deploy the instrument of FOI Act.
- Regular interface with government to highlight concerns about press freedom
7. Improved synergy of activities between media NGOs and media professional groups to address concerns relating to safety of journalists.
