Diamond Awards for Media Excellence, DAME, has over the years distinguished itself as a special annual event where some media practitioners are celebrated and rewarded for their outstanding works. The importance of the recognition that comes with the award is underscored by the spirited efforts by journalists to be named recipients.
In this interview with SAKIBU OLOKOJOBI, the brain behind DAME, Mr. Lanre Idowu, speaks about the essence of the awards, the journey so far and how fulfilled he is.
He also bares his mind on some of the major challenges confronting the media in Nigeria and the way out. Excerpts:
It has been quite a long time you left the newsroom. What are your fond memories of your days in the newsroom?
How long ago now? (laughs). I have to think. We started Media Review in 1991. So, you could say that in terms of daily gathering of news, that was when I stopped. That is half of the story. Even from 1991 when I was publishing Media Review, I was still looking for gist, news, talking to people, seeking clarifications and writing as well as editing. I think I did that for about 22 or 23 years. Yes, you are right. It has been a long time. Now, I am not in the day to day business of looking for news. But I still follow what’s in the news, I still keep abreast to understand some of the issues of the day. A few months ago we were at the book presentation of Chief Segun Osoba, and one of the things that he said that I really love was that he loved being addressed as a Reporter because it was the soul of this business. It still remains. I share that largely. Every other thing is an improvement on the report; the commentaries, the editorials and so on are based on what has first been reported – what is in the news, what is trending. Reporting is very critical, it’s very important and I’m happy to be addressed as a Reporter first and foremost.
Do I have fond memories? Of course, yes. You know, when you are on the beat, there is something that happens to you especially when you are following something interesting. Your heart beats faster. The adrenalin runs higher. You feel something within you that you are on to something; you are trying to unravel a mystery about something; there is a story you are working on; you are knocking at the door; the door is about to open. There is a kind of excitement that is very difficult to capture in words. I do have some fond memories of those moments. I have fond memories of when you are in the newsroom and you are discussing story lines and the angles to pursue; when there are some people doing the background work, digging to get some information that will be very helpful when you hit the road. At a point one almost did everything himself but over time as the news operations got more complex, and depending on the resources available it became necessary to firm out some aspects. I think that is still the way it remains largely in terms of the approach, even if you may say that the approach to news gathering is much easier now because there are more resources and there a number of things you can get online now.
The newsroom has always been described as a mad house. How does that fit into your own definition of a newsroom?
When we were with This Week magazine, there was a quote on the wall of the Editor’s office – “Democracy dies here.” Another one says, “We are not all mad men, but a little madness helps here.” What does that mean? It means there’s a lot of pressure. The business of gathering news or processing news is done under intense pressure – pressure to look at the reports; pressure to gather the reports; pressure to check the reports and see the missing angles; pressure to check out the missing ingredients that are required to prepare that news dish before you serve it to the consuming public. Remember that you are working towards a deadline. In the process of doing that you step on each others’ toes; you do away with some civility. You have to produce by 7.00 pm., and at 6.30 p.m. you are waiting for some relevant information and the person working on them is not moving fast enough. Whereas, that person feels that it’s almost at a breaking point. So, sometimes, you need to raise your voice, sometimes you need to literarily kick some butt just to get the job done. That’s my own understanding of the newsroom being a mad house.
Journalism has gone digital now, and like you said, it is a lot easier to get the work done in the area of research and more. Although you may be far away from it, you definitely can have a feel of it. How would you describe the current newsroom, in view of the new trend?
Only those who are there can tell some of us that are outside. But essentially, the business of journalism has not changed. What is the business? First, you gather information and you serve it as news. Largely if you are looking at journalism as a business of sourcing for information that will be processed to news, it is still the same. But of course, the tools are changing. And as the tools are changing, some of the personnel too may be changing. Because the tools are changing, they are also affected by those tools. It is a two way thing. In terms of dissemination, in terms of processing, in terms of gathering and others, a lot has changed. Of course, there are people back in the office who are waiting for the reports, who are going to vet before they pass them on for publication. You have more people who are well versed to work digitally. In our own time when we started, make up (graphics) was physically done. You cut and paste, but computer has eliminated that. Sometimes when you say this, it is as if you are telling a fiction. As recent as in the 80s that was the nature of the business. The situation is changing and it is redefining the nature of the business. Because it is very quick to share information these days, some of us are becoming victims; we are becoming victims of the change. The change is supposed to bring progress, make life easier, but it has its own consequences. Some are unintended.
How do you mean?
Whereas before, you could stay a day or two to dig more in the process of working on a story, because of the race to break the news first before you turn it into a developing story, you find out that people tend to take things for granted. Because I want to beat you to it, I would not do sufficient checking, probing. I still feel I can always add to it. And, in doing that, when it goes right for you, no problem. But when you make a mistake, it is all over the world. At the click of a button it is all over, and that does some harm to you as an individual journalist and it does some harm to the credibility to your organisation. It shows that you are not thorough, you are in haste. Where people take information seriously, it has economic consequences in terms of the patronage you get. It also has some damaging political consequences. Not too long ago, we had some online organisations dishing out what some of us saw on the face of it that they had not done enough work. Someone just came up on the net, saying “this is what is going on at the Villa.” Who is he? Why do you attach importance to him? On what authority? He was just pronouncing, and not showing anything lending credence to what he was saying. Then you published that. One or two otherwise serious publications did that. It is like we are lowering our guard. We are coming to accept that getting it first is more important than getting it right. So, those are some of the challenges that we need to moderate and begin to remind ourselves that you must get it right. Facts are sacred, comments are free. Before you can say something is factual, you check. When there is any iota of doubt, you hold back until you can satisfy that in favour of the reader. You are the gatekeeper. You are to say that what we send out, we can put our organisation’s stamp that we have checked it, processed it and we certify it good enough for you – the public. But I also know that anybody can post anything now. They call them citizen journalists. Some are quite good, some are quite knowledgeable, some are called bloggers. Those of us who call ourselves professional journalists, who had gone through some curricula, prepared for work in this sector, some of those principles that are so elementary, rudimentary are so crucial to what we are doing. We must have balance. You don’t publish a one-sided account. You don’t publish what you have not checked to the best of your ability. It is not enough to say all efforts to talk to so so person proved abortive. That could be okay a few years back, but not anymore. When you are not sure, you leave out or you take it from a different angle, especially when it has to do with someone’s integrity. You cannot just say that man stole something. Anybody can say anything. Let the person use his own medium to say anything. Why must the person use you? What is the source? What weight do you attach to what he said? Like I said, those who call themselves bloggers may get away with it, which does not even make it right, but those of us who call ourselves professional journalists must make that difference clear by bringing to bear that training, that skepticism that should be second nature to us. You don’t look at anything and take it for its face value. No matter how attractive it may be you have to check it out. And as I said, it’s a lot easier these days. The phone is there. There are so many things you can do and continue to do until you eliminate doubts as possible. Then you can say we have checked – first layer, second layer, third layer – until all we are able to get seem reasonably fair to say that this is what has happened.
That is obviously why the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, recently said the social media would be regulated.
There is no responsible government that is not interested in influencing the tone of public discourse. The ways they go about it differ. Every government tries to. There is no government that leaves it a free for all. Some are very skillful the way they do it. They do it behind the scene. The first thing to consider is: Is there substance in the cry? Do we really have a problem with online communication? I think yes, we do. Is the government best placed to tackle it? Yes and No. It depends on the way we look at it. How best can we address the issue? We have stakeholders; those who call themselves players in the media – writers, broadcasters, owners, editor, producers, bloggers and so on. Do we have a responsibility to the society, to the public? I think we do. So, what kind of conversation should we have around this subject? What were the previous efforts or what are the modus available to us in Nigeria and elsewhere on how to manage the role, the place and the reach of the media in the society. A little history will be helpful here. We have had a statutory mechanism to regulate the media. It didn’t quite work. It was called Nigeria Press Council. Why didn’t it work? That was before the online media took over. The organised media made up of the owners, the Nigerian Guild of Editors, individual journalists, NUJ, didn’t quite trust the intention of the state in setting up a statutory body, for one reason or the other, even though there were attempts to bring the media groups in. Theoretically it still exists. There is a body in Abuja funded by the Federal Government. I’m not sure they are doing mediation; I’m not sure they are doing adjudication; I’m not sure anybody is submitting to their authority as provided for by law.
Then, there was another attempt about nine years ago by the organised media, NPAN and NGE to have an independent ombudsman mechanism. Even that one, what is its state now? It may have been put aside now. Where the media fails to organise itself, you make it easy for the state to want to impose its will. But because it is not all the time that we can trust people in office, especially when it comes to government-media relationship, we are reasonably concerned. I think rather than lament about what government wants to do, we should take them up on the thrust of what they plan to do. We should engage them in a way that will be beneficial to the society. What I am saying in short is that we cannot run away from some form of regulation. But what form of regulation? It cannot be a free for all. Is the NGE meeting? Does it have a position on it? Is NPAN meeting? Has it considered the implication? Does it have a position on it? What is the position of the NUJ? Of course, there are new players now. We have GOCOP – Guild of Corporate Online Publishers. What are they saying? I hope we will not go into a state of hysteria and lament. We see samples on a daily basis. All sorts of funny funny titles just come up. A good number of them don’t even do any independent reporting. They just pick stories here and there. Really should we allow that? Should you have the right to pick my work anyhow without my permission? There is so much being talked about, but I am not seeing or hearing about all that.
I know you believe in the media as a tool for development. But considering that the country is not developing as much as many have expected, can we blame the media for not doing what it is expected of it?
Not entirely. The media is not in government, but the media is a strong pillar of our democracy. Where we can put a little part of the blame on the media is whether or not they play their role as agenda setters creditably. For me, I see us reacting to events most of the time. I don’t see enough agenda setting. I’m not saying we are not doing it at all, but I don’t see enough of it. I see largely, “government is doing this,” “government is doing that.” Some of the publications, now and then come up with insightful pieces, some investigations about budgetary allocations for some sectors. I’ve read two or three interesting pieces looking at the education sector for instance. But if you look at, for example, health sector, I would expect that those covering that sector would be looking at healthcare. Imagine there is an accident, what kind of facility do we have; we have seen projects and they sound very high, after some time, some other governments come in and you don’t hear anything about that anymore. I want us to, sector by sector basis, look at what is desirable. What state are we? What do we need to move closer to that desired state? We can deploy our communication and reportorial skills to stimulate conversations. No area should be neglected. We can prioritise, depending on the interest of a particular medium. We should do it in a systematic manner and be consistent so that the sectors you are highlighting will have to sit up because they know you have a sustained interest in that sector. It is like you are leading a crusade. You should do it in a way that is fair; that is balanced; that makes them open up to you. I would want to see more of such reporting. I would want a more deliberate focus on issues. Sometimes, I think we cozy too much to those in office and we over-struggle to be friends to those in public offices. There is nothing wrong with having friends with those in public offices, but there must still be that professional distance where you have respect for each other. I respect you as a source, I respect you as a public servant, and you respect me as a professional such that when you talk to me, you will know that I will handle my assignment with utmost responsibility. If I need to hit you I will hit you, even if you are my friend. But I will not do it maliciously. I will not invent facts in my criticising you. That is what I want to see more.
I want us to carry ourselves with more dignity and not as press boys. If you call yourself media executives, act as media executives. Act like you have self pride with what you are doing. I’ve heard some reporters, in the name of “interactive media session” (I hate that expression), turn themselves into spokespersons of their friends. The man has invited you to have a chat, let’s have that chat and not you beginning to answer questions for him. Those are things that I feel we should begin to do away with.
Some of the issues you have pointed out are related to the problems of the poor state of the industry these days where you have some organisations not paying their staff and other related problems. What would you say is the problem with the industry in general in this respect?
The media operates like other businesses in the sense that when you set up your business, you have a purpose of setting it up. You can have a service that is not for profit, but if you set up a business, in other words, you want some return on your investment. There are many things you are going to take into consideration. We also realise that the media business is quite peculiar. It has some challenges and we must not run away. What are the problems we face? We face the problem of patronage, we face the problem of accessibility, we face the problem of ability to do it in a profitable manner. Then, what modules do we adopt? Do we need to change those modules? Do we need a conversation around those challenges? Are we all looking in one direction? Do we need to start to break out and have a different approach? If we say people should not take (brown) envelopes, but there are givers. When there are givers, there will be takers. If our businesses are not doing well, what do those who give, give for? What kind of stories do they give money for? They don’t give money because they are Father Christmas. They are giving the money to influence what you say to make it as favourably as possible. Is it not time we begin to look at what we call Press Release. A number of stories published on our news pages are press release materials. Not that they are bad. Some are well written. They are written by professionals also. Perhaps we may need to redefine what is NEWS, and what is commercial information or charitable information we want to share. And perhaps, those commercial ones, which we call PR (Public Relations) stuff, should, attract some payment, and they are treated as such. You define it, may be not more than 200 words; then, you will still check it just to ensure it is not containing an untruth. Then, they pay for it. May be those who collect those materials, collect money and smuggle them into the regular news pages. We can help them to use their talent elsewhere. If you have a page or two of such, there will be people who are willing to read, and owners of the materials will pay for them. Then, we can have the other pages for well investigated stories.
I think largely, we need to redirect our focus. We need to find out why we are not doing well. Why do our newspapers look so identical? What do we all write about? We write: Government is doing this, Buhari is doing that. We need to begin to look at the content. I read a lot, and on the basis of giving awards, even though I am not a judge of Dame Awards, I preside over the meetings and I read recommendations. I see a lot of verbosity. It is like we like to fill space. We write and write and write and write. What are they saying? You say the same thing in ten different ways. Padding! I think we still have a lot to do about our content. I serve on the West Africa Media Award as a judge. It is the same problem. I look at the entries from Nigeria, they are usually very long. I look at the ones from other countries, they are usually too short. It seems to me that there is a need for a middle of the road position. When is it too long? I think when we write, me must have the audience, the viewers, the readers in mind. What is their attention span? How can we break it down in a way that is informative and also entertaining? It is not a textbook. Even textbooks, these days, you have to break them down and package them in a way that they can hold the attention of the audience. I think we need to do more work in that area. Even when you are reading as a judge, you will be tired at a point.
Could some of these factors have been responsible for the reduction in the circulation figures of the conventional newspapers?
Some of the things I have said are responsible. Also, we have more players now, and more outlets. The taste has become more sophisticated. They are spoilt for choice. You can pick what you want. You can even set up the kind of news that you receive. Is it fashion? You go to Google. I grew up reading as many as four, five papers a day. I will read Sketch, read Daily Times. When there was Express, I read, and of course, Lagos Weekend. All these things, we had at home. Then later, when I started working I would still read the major papers of the day. When Daily Times was the star, of course you had to read Daily Times. We read The Punch, we read Vanguard and National Concord. But now, how many organisations can afford to buy those newspapers. There was a time I had friends who would come here in the afternoon to read newspapers, because they could not buy, but now when you can get them online, I don’t see them anymore. I’ve also reduced the number of newspapers that I buy. So, there are a number of factors. One, the nature of the business has changed. We have variety of products, sources, platforms where you receive news. It is a more discerning audience, viewership and readership. And why do I have to read everything when I can tailor what I receive to meet my needs? We’ve talked about content. We need to improve on that and the way we present it.
What can we do about it? We can be more deliberate, more focused. We need to understand our audience better than we do now. We need to do more on the changing taste of our audiences. How many of us watch national television where there is easy access to news from all corners of the world. You go to public offices, what do they have? They are on DSTV. We are not seeing NTA, we’re not seeing Channels. I think all that has to change; we need to reorientation ourselves even though it’s not easy to do that because we are clobbered on a daily basis. Some of us are not even aware or conscious of this assault on our psyche. We also need to improve what we give out. We need to invest more in what can be original to us. What do I mean by that? If there is a development, let’s say Buhari is going to London and he is going to stay two weeks. You can’t stay with that for tomorrow’s paper. Everybody has heard it and there is nothing new about it because it would have been online. So, we need to change the focus. What is he going to do there this time? When was the last time he went there? You begin to do some research based on what message you want to pass across. When you do that the readers will have something new compared to what he had read before. The analysis has to be stressed. If I am sure I can get a particular type of interpretation from a medium, the tendency is that I will want to read the newspaper. You ask: What does The Punch have to say about this? What does The Guardian want to say or what does Premium Times have to say? You begin to see distinct styles, different things to expect from a particular medium. You now know that if I want this type of analysis or this information, this is where I can get the authentic one. I think we should have that differentiating idea. We know where to migrate to, even as advertisers. The advertiser may say I want to support this brand of journalism and I will put my advert here. Again, we need to conduct a study to understand it very well. What is the income available to an average reader? Why does that reader like to read? I don’t know how many of us have done that lately. I know some may have done it at some point. How recently has that been carried out? We need to do it periodically so that we can understand and cater adequately for the readers. This kind of study will help you to strengthen those core areas that are important to you and your audiences. When we do that we should begin to see some improvement. Seriously, our reporting is in a state of crisis.
*Concluding part to be published on Wednesday.
