Beyond the Euphoria of World Press Freedom Day Celebration

It is a common knowledge that this year’s World Press Freedom Day themed “Journalism under digital siege,” organized annually since 1993, was held on 2-5 May, 2022. Separate from spotlighting the multiple ways in which journalism is endangered by surveillance and digitally-mediated attacks on journalists, and the consequences of all this on public trust in digital communications,  this year’s  Global Conference co-hosted  by UNESCO and the Republic of Uruguay , among other  things provided  an opportunity to journalists, civil society representatives, national authorities, academics and the broader public to discuss emerging challenges to press freedom and journalists’ safety, and to work together on identifying solutions.

Making it a double-barreled celebration is the fact that at about the same time, the latest UNESCO World Trends Report Insights discussion paper ‘ Threats that Silence; Trends In the safety of  Journalists’ highlighted how surveillance and hacking are compromising journalism. Surveillance it argued can expose information gathered by journalists including from whistle-blowers, and violates the principle of source protection, which is universally considered a prerequisite for freedom of the media and is enshrined in UN Resolutions. Surveillance may also harm the safety of journalists by disclosing sensitive private information, which could be used for arbitrary judicial harassment or attack. It concluded.

However, even when there is presently a growing global push encouraging more transparency regarding how Internet companies exploit citizens’ data; how that data informs predictive models and artificial intelligence, and enables amplification of disinformation and hatred, At about the same time, the celebration offered me the opportunity to reflect on how Fundamentally, media professionals in Nigeria, particularly, the press have ‘effectively been deployed  to cause despondency and exacerbates dropping spirit in our political shores. We have used the press to communicate more hatred than love, injustice than justice and deprivation than equity. Very regrettably, asymmetrical use of the press in the country has brought about a state of affairs where tribal loyalty is now considered stronger and more important than our common sense of nationhood.

In recent years, press in Nigeria has become the stage for fierce political and ideological warfare in ways that negates our rationality as human beings. Through the  unfortunate process, great amount of innocent human character has been spilled, wars of words waged, countless souls/ambition persecuted and martyred. The press has failed to communicate noble ideas and ideals. This consequence of their failures is responsible for why anarchy presently prevails in the country and accounts for why Nigerians daily diminish and are impoverished.

That is on the one hand.

Viewed differently, there is no gain denying that citizens of every nation ( democratic or otherwise), hunger for ‘public forum or sphere where the issues of the public interests are viewed as central, and openly considered, discussed or debated. And how the politicians and public office holders for their part, have a great interest in how the media covers their behavior. They depend on the media to provide the information they need about the people and the society. The media practitioners, in turn, depend much on the authorities (public office holders) for their information.

Increasingly, by choice or by accident, a number of issues daily emanate from this mutual dependency particularly, as the vast majority of public office holders are allergic to accepting their political past/mistakes while others are not disposed to having their political future discussed. Also, the media professional in their search for new but personal fields to increase their wealth and wellbeing have at some points opted out of its primary mandate of objective reportage to become a willing tool in the hands of these political gladiators.

And in the process, failed to inculcate and reinforce positive political, cultural, social attitudes among the citizens, and failed to create a mood in which people become keen to acquire skills and disciplines of a developed nation. Indeed, some media professionals have overtly become more cautious than courageous in performing their agenda setting roles. They have on many occasions watched the making of political cum economic decisions that breeds poverty and perpetrates powerlessness, yet took the easy way out without addressing the underlying factors thereby leaving the masses confused.

Consequently, the nation Nigeria has on countless occasions witnessed this relationship snowball into a frosty one as the government attempts to unjustly moderate, control or regulate public discourse using decrees(during the military eras) and draconian legislation to impose punishments that are incongruent with logic or reason. The situation has since been made worse under the present democratic dispensation.

Another silent point we must not fail to remember is that ‘where the media is free, the marketplace of ideas sort the irresponsible from the responsible. But a partisan/government controlled press helps the politicians flood the marketplace of ideas with junks and befuddle the people so that they could not see what their vital interest could mean. Free press the world over is not a privilege but an organic necessity in the society that provides a platform/avenue for positive criticism, reliable, and intelligent reporting through which the government can be informed about what the people of the country are thinking and doing. Nigerians are aware of this fact.

Also, what the government should realize is that with the advent of social media, which has in turn given birth to ‘citizen’s journalism’, the stage is set for a democratized information management and ‘pressmanism’.

In advancing the above position, the piece is aware of the social responsibility postulations which are supportive of the views that every freedom must go with a responsibility.

In all, one established truth we cannot do away with is the fact that the sole aim of journalism is service and in providing this service, they enjoy great power and followership. It is therefore left for Nigerian government to provide the media industry the needed raw material to function. The raw material in question is no other but positive performance card.

To make this year’s celebration a rewarding one, the press/journalists must on their part recognize that ‘every decision they make when ‘gathering, organizing and presenting the news requires a value judgment as different decisions bring different results. All decisions have consequences that are direct and indirect, intended and unintended, short term and long term. And journalist’s decisions affect others; those decisions may influence thousands of people’s opinions on a political issue’.

Government on their part should take recourse to the fact that ‘‘the function of the press is very high. It is almost holy. It ought to serve as a forum for the people, through which the people may freely know what is going on. To misstate or suppress information is a breach of trust’’ This is sacrosanct and pivotal for any development-oriented society.

Utomi, is the Programme Coordinator (Media and Public Policy), Social and Economic Justice Advocacy (SEJA), Lagos. He could be reached via;jeromeutomi@yahoo.com/08032725374.

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