"It is an ignominy that THE PUNCH newspaper, a publication renowned for the best practices in the Industry and respected by the public as a bearer of truth has found itself in the troubled waters of unethical practices involving the ED publications who is celebrated for wielding a battle axe on corrupt public officers and even private individuals, with his editorial column" Ethics is acting in accordance with right principles as defined by a given system or professional conduct. The importance of a code of ethics for any profession cannot be overemphasised. This is more so because practitioners strive to enhance generally accepted standards in their practice in other to weed out charlatans from their midst and enhance trust and credibility in such profession. The Mass Communication practice is not immune to this assertion.
As a PGD student at The Nigerian Institute of Journalism, Ogba Lagos, part of our curriculum and requirement is a study of ethical practices in the media. We carried out an analysis of various ethical factors and problems in mass communication and my group was assigned to look at the issue as it relates to employee/employer relationship.
During our study, we discovered the following;
1. Although an overall code of ethical code exist which was issued by the Nigerian Press Organization in 1978 and signed jointly by the President of the NPAN, the President of the NGE and the President of the NUJ, It has not been fully accepted and practiced by all journalists, editors and producers. Only a few media outlets have “house” codes however many of them fail to create a favourable climate to practice them
2. The Nigerian media still lacks a set of overall professional standards, which would be equally honoured and observed by journalists and managers of media houses
3. The lack of a uniform, enforceable ethical code
4. The gate keeping habit practiced in some media houses where certain individuals within the organisation (Editors, Reporters and Publishers etc) decided to “Kill” a story thereby preventing such story from getting to the public.
5. What is called “The Brown envelope syndrome” among some practicing journalists in Nigeria.
These amongst others have been the bane of the media industry in Nigeria. Also we gathered from the code of ethics for Nigerian Journalist as ratified by The Nigerian Press Council (NPC) and The Nigerian Press Organization (NPO) at Ilorin in 1998, which has become a reference point for Nigerian Journalist and the informed public concerning issues of self regulation in the practice of the media profession; that the media employee/ employer are ethically responsible to each other in the areas of; loyalty- a media practitioner must be loyal to his/her organization. This means he or she must not have double allegiance; honesty- a media practitioner must be honest in dealing with the public and employer; gratification- media practitioner must not accept gratification either from the public or from the employer to distort fact . This in Nigeria is referred to as “The brown envelope syndrome” and must be avoided at all cost in order to create and maintain credibility.
The success of the media depends on a high degree of public trust. To earn and maintain this trust, it is morally binding on every media practitioner to observe the highest professional/moral and ethical standards.
It is an ignominy that THE PUNCH newspaper, a publication renowned for the best practices in the Industry and respected by the public as a bearer of truth has found itself in the troubled waters of unethical practices involving the ED publications who is celebrated for wielding a battle axe on corrupt public officers and even private individuals, with his editorial column. It has become a case of kettle calling pot black.
A synopsis of events that led to the eye-opening and embarrassing disclosure goes thus- The editor of The Punch Newspaper was sacked unjustly for planning to plant a story about some Lagos state public officers in the same paper that he edits. The story was not published in The Punch Newspaper on Wednesday February 17 2010; however the story appeared in every other newspaper with full pictures on the same day. The Editor felt he had been treated unjustly and this led to his writing a letter dated March 1, 2010 to the board of Directors demanding justice and opening a can of worms that revealed the true identity of their respected and presumed morally upright and ethical sound ED Publications.
The editor’s letter revealed the many atrocities of the ED Publications of Punch Newspaper right from when he was the editor of the paper. The sacked editor gave facts and mentioned names of members of staff past and present who could be contacted should the Board of Directors choose to investigate his allegations. In the letter, the Ed Publications was accused of disloyalty to The Punch Newspaper, using the newspapers resources for his selfish interest, the brown envelope syndrome that has stigmatized the industry for so long, gate-keeping stories about highly placed individuals who he incidentally was on their payroll among many other unethical practices. This was someone whose editorial was sought after by so many Nigerians who believed they were getting an objective and critical view of happenings in Nigeria. It turned out that the mouth piece of the public to corrupt leaders in private and public sector was indeed corrupt himself. What a shame!
Personally I am disappointed and I imagine what huge responsibility God Almighty will have on his shoulder on judgment day. This is a lesson to other corrupt media practitioners and public in general that there is nothing covered under the sun. What you do in secret will one day be brought to the open, so please do what you will be proud of even when no one is watching you.
As a PGD student at The Nigerian Institute of Journalism, Ogba Lagos, part of our curriculum and requirement is a study of ethical practices in the media. We carried out an analysis of various ethical factors and problems in mass communication and my group was assigned to look at the issue as it relates to employee/employer relationship.
During our study, we discovered the following;
1. Although an overall code of ethical code exist which was issued by the Nigerian Press Organization in 1978 and signed jointly by the President of the NPAN, the President of the NGE and the President of the NUJ, It has not been fully accepted and practiced by all journalists, editors and producers. Only a few media outlets have “house” codes however many of them fail to create a favourable climate to practice them
2. The Nigerian media still lacks a set of overall professional standards, which would be equally honoured and observed by journalists and managers of media houses
3. The lack of a uniform, enforceable ethical code
4. The gate keeping habit practiced in some media houses where certain individuals within the organisation (Editors, Reporters and Publishers etc) decided to “Kill” a story thereby preventing such story from getting to the public.
5. What is called “The Brown envelope syndrome” among some practicing journalists in Nigeria.
These amongst others have been the bane of the media industry in Nigeria. Also we gathered from the code of ethics for Nigerian Journalist as ratified by The Nigerian Press Council (NPC) and The Nigerian Press Organization (NPO) at Ilorin in 1998, which has become a reference point for Nigerian Journalist and the informed public concerning issues of self regulation in the practice of the media profession; that the media employee/ employer are ethically responsible to each other in the areas of; loyalty- a media practitioner must be loyal to his/her organization. This means he or she must not have double allegiance; honesty- a media practitioner must be honest in dealing with the public and employer; gratification- media practitioner must not accept gratification either from the public or from the employer to distort fact . This in Nigeria is referred to as “The brown envelope syndrome” and must be avoided at all cost in order to create and maintain credibility.
The success of the media depends on a high degree of public trust. To earn and maintain this trust, it is morally binding on every media practitioner to observe the highest professional/moral and ethical standards.
It is an ignominy that THE PUNCH newspaper, a publication renowned for the best practices in the Industry and respected by the public as a bearer of truth has found itself in the troubled waters of unethical practices involving the ED publications who is celebrated for wielding a battle axe on corrupt public officers and even private individuals, with his editorial column. It has become a case of kettle calling pot black.
A synopsis of events that led to the eye-opening and embarrassing disclosure goes thus- The editor of The Punch Newspaper was sacked unjustly for planning to plant a story about some Lagos state public officers in the same paper that he edits. The story was not published in The Punch Newspaper on Wednesday February 17 2010; however the story appeared in every other newspaper with full pictures on the same day. The Editor felt he had been treated unjustly and this led to his writing a letter dated March 1, 2010 to the board of Directors demanding justice and opening a can of worms that revealed the true identity of their respected and presumed morally upright and ethical sound ED Publications.
The editor’s letter revealed the many atrocities of the ED Publications of Punch Newspaper right from when he was the editor of the paper. The sacked editor gave facts and mentioned names of members of staff past and present who could be contacted should the Board of Directors choose to investigate his allegations. In the letter, the Ed Publications was accused of disloyalty to The Punch Newspaper, using the newspapers resources for his selfish interest, the brown envelope syndrome that has stigmatized the industry for so long, gate-keeping stories about highly placed individuals who he incidentally was on their payroll among many other unethical practices. This was someone whose editorial was sought after by so many Nigerians who believed they were getting an objective and critical view of happenings in Nigeria. It turned out that the mouth piece of the public to corrupt leaders in private and public sector was indeed corrupt himself. What a shame!
Personally I am disappointed and I imagine what huge responsibility God Almighty will have on his shoulder on judgment day. This is a lesson to other corrupt media practitioners and public in general that there is nothing covered under the sun. What you do in secret will one day be brought to the open, so please do what you will be proud of even when no one is watching you.
No comments:
Post a Comment