Mass communication experts must be cracking their brains with heavy sledge hammer to actually find a new and more suitable adjective to describe what used to be known as Junk Journalism. As for me what is happening today is much deeper than junk. For want of a better expression call it ‘information terrorism’.
It has crept into journalism practice and now confuses our understanding of the profession. What also surprises many communication experts is the rate at which the political class who are often the victims of the terror, display gullibility for this trap. Their patronage is the sap that has sustained the Oddity. In Port Harcourt, the once glorious Garden City, many of such news trash have sprang up like mushroom in the last few years. Tens of others are currently in their incubation stage- lava, pupa, name it. Most of the wild papers are printed in cubicle located in and around the popular Mile I Market. No thanks to computer technology which forms the major technological accessory.
With one functional computer system and a copy typist, a publisher is almost adequately equipped to get on with the business. The names are not always outlandish from ‘Morning Sun’ to ‘Evening Moon’ Newspapers. And indeed their editorial contents sound like moonlight tales. Rather than teach morals, educate or inform, they go all out to kill and bury. They castigate where they should criticise. They misinform where they should inform and they pass judgment for objective comment.
For them, libel is no longer an enforceable law and should not be respected. Social responsibility is now a game for the irresponsible. The casualties are not only the political class, but the reading public whose right to be truly inform and to read objective and balanced criticism is flagrantly abused.
Recently the Hon. Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, Hon. Tonye Harry, came on the firing line over some of the allegations made against him at the Justice Eso Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
One of the captions reads ‘More Troubles for Rivers Speaker – As he battles to save name’ and this was followed in quick succession by another even more embarrassing caption in another edition “Tonye Harry Recruits Thugs: Doles out N.5m”.
The supposed front page news reads in part “The Rt. Hon. Speaker may be parting ways with the Governor Rotimi Amaechi, as any moment from now, the sword of Damocles hangs over his head. Sooner or later, Rt. Hon. Harry would be referred to as former speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly if the forces against him finally had their way.”
This is a clear example of editorialisation in which the reporter injects his personal views and sentiments into what should otherwise be a news report.
It is against the ethics of journalism practice, but since we have convinced ourselves that papers like this are engaged in something order than journalism, it can be pardoned and the issue of etiquette need not arise.
Again the second supposed news headline is telling whoever its reader are, that the Hon Speaker Tonye Harry has abandoned the serious business of lawmaking for which his constituency sent him to the state House and for which Rivers people made him Speaker, and taken to the recruitment of thugs to scare his accuser, Inye Harry, son of late Chief Marshal Harry. May be because the later accused him of having a hand in the kidnap of the mother of the former Governor, Sir Celestine Omehia.
The write up also alleges that the Speaker has already committed N.5m to the project. The article obviously presented the allegation made against the speaker before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as though it is an established fact proved beyond reasonable doubt. Such reports can inflame passion. They run contrary to the overall objective for which the Rivers State Government set up the commission.
The commission was set up to bring reconciliation of aggrieved parties and engender peace. Any report that ignores these facts must be targeted at frustrating the good intentions of the government.
Junk must not be packaged as an integral part of journalism. Social Responsibility must be given an overriding consideration above any form of economic and political gains in the efforts to disseminate information.
Journalism is a noble and honourable profession and should not be allowed to be hijacked by ignoble and dishonourable people in the name of politics.