Journalism in Nigeria has many woes. But at the spur of the moment, one of them – mental laziness – goes not only destroy the practice; it also calls for a state of emergency on the profession. Mental laziness is the bad open window to every other problem hanging on its name.
Mental laziness is the mindset to do it same in every way, whatever the wrongs or the stakes. It is the reluctance to think to do, to reason, to check and crosscheck. It is the beginning of every other problem, any problem, you know about the profession. And like all problems, it begins in the mind and trickles down to the heart through to the feet, and onto the soul of the very system it claims to serve.
Nigeria has suffered much in the hands of malpractice of journalism, much of it unaccounted for by our scholarship because, the depth of the issues our academic studies of ‘the role of’ cannot determine. That is a topic for another time.
But even the few, negligible case studies to unearth to highlight the issues through the instrumentation of political economy and other critical theories is not even appreciated within the academic system, say less about impacting on the field.
We are a say and do nothing about our problems professionals. We know, we see the issues but we deny and ignore them. This is because we do not share the shame of the dark spots the noblest profession has on the system and we idle in the truth that it is the system that bedevils the profession. True. It is both ways, like the egg-hen analogy – which comes foremost, the egg or the hen.
But it does not stop there. I have always chosen the individual path: do your own. Change occurs on personal levels from the mindset of the individual and multiples with others, overtime, to make our number. So it is the refusal to be right, to correct, to insist, that sinks us downdeep.
It is the refusal to exercise our human right to be and to think different; to do it in different ways of the right thing to do, that makes the more deterioration possible. And here we are: sinking the job and our image down the gutter. And outside mouthservice, we are actually the enemies of the very profession on which we feed.
So with mental laziness, we have used journalism to compound the issues, and instead of looking into the mirror, we go on to blame the system, politicians, organisations, institutions and the government of which we are integral part.
And we go about using the platforms, ceremonies and occasions of the profession doing more wrongs. This piece cannot be delivered as speech on any journalism celebration, not even on May 3, the World Press Freedom Day. No one will invite you to talk this ‘nonsense.’ It is the only impersonal professional and public concern that invites personal anger and hatred right now.
And so we keep shying away on the key issues we put on the neck of practise and talk about what the entire socioeconomic system harm journalism. When we do, it stops there at the venue of the event. We need to act, to do, to be different by the mind and by the pen.
Mental laziness in journalism is the result of poor reporting, poor writing after reporting or not reporting at all. All three issues exist in our type of practise. As teachers, we carry some of the blames, but a teacher like a journalists, should be accountable first to themselves – to the name and integrity, honesty and excellence, for all of which only they expect a decent burial.
Mental laziness misconceives – consciously or subconsciously – the very definition of reporting and undermines its very basic principles. The gravest of the misconceptions is the idea that writing can make up for reporting, for poor reporting of course. No. It does not. No amount of good writing can make for bad reporting.
Poor reporting is when you have not accounted for information about a story and you go on to write and tell it. That brings to mind the discrepancies in the accounts of number of persons killed in a tragedy like we now have in the Zamfara or the Northwest crises, not minding sometimes the occasional need for the intervening variable of social responsibility.
The opposite of bad reporting is good reporting. And it is the practice of the few, negligible novices and the courageous experienced journalist on the field who thrive against the tide of intimidation, sanction, undermines, harassment in the, and sometimes even driven from the, newsroom.
Fresh with the knowledge and active skills of the young, and with the honour and integrity of the experienced reporter, they want to do it right. Many of them are managing their values within the harshness of many organisations, especially in the public media.
Good reporting is difficult but selfrewarding. It fulfils the reporter. You must talk to victims in a story, asked witnesses, meet the authorities and see the number of bodies in a bombblast, before they even sit to make a draft.
Good reporting must be to account for the person, event, issue, address, name, fact, figure, number, height, length, degree of impact, depth, size, colours and place in a story and to see, feel, taste, touch, hear and measure each of those first before writing to tell about them in a story.
That is pretty difficult for the Nigerian journalist just like it has been difficult to the student in training, and that is a cardinal in the issues our practise generates every day. In the wake of the 9/11 event in 2001, a reporter was able to describe even the smell of the smoke that oozed out of the impact of burning fire in the WTC. Why? How? It is because they reported and wrote accurate stoies. So reporting, good reporting must precede writing.
But we made journalism a universal value to save humanity and Nigerianised everything about it, pushed into the sentiments, bias, mediocrity and greed of the local system, and it is exposing us every day. We have journalists, who don’t go out, don’t travel to report stories.
They sit in the comfort of their homes and write about places they haven’t seen; persons they haven’t met; events they haven’t witnessed; witnesses they haven’t asked; victims they haven’t counted; extent of damages they haven’t measured.
They are the smart guys of the profession, and sadly, in most cases the leaders of the unions that hold the accountability and responsibility tag of the profession. They think writing can make for, misreporting or for not reporting at all. And it is all for nothing valuable, but scanty handouts. It is such disgusting. I pay respect here to the few I know I respect and love for their sense and practice of difference.
In the stead of the expectation of the smart reporter, it worsens their case. It leads them to overreporting or underreporting. Both are terrible. The first makes the journalist exaggerate; the second makes them leave out the essential elements in a story, or leave out a whole lot of a story, enough reason bad reporting is even dangerous.
It is getting worst now. The trending issue now is that journalists are stealing stories. That is dangerous. It is criminal offence. They carry stories investigated, reported and written by other journalists without even the tiniest of acknowledgment.
Where do we want to go with this malpractice? What do we really want to get? Is it not enough that journalists do a lot bad things and shift the goal posts. Now, on this alone – the theft of the sweat, hardwork and energy of the different colleagues – they can be sued and claims can be made to cost the culprit their entire license of practice.
The other side of it all is the injustice and unfairness they do their colleagues. Remember the popular maxim that whoever expects should give. Journalists want expensive justice and fairness from others – politicians and the government – when they stampfeet on the justice of their colleagues.
They all work under the same environment, with same incentives, conditions and challenges. But there are the good hands, the strongminds and the courageous who try their best at good reporting in the order to be up-to-date and do things right, only for the same wicked, lazy colleagues to lift their stories without even a word of acknowledgment, like it is their own effort, work.
Good reporters navigate long, harsh, impossible distances to get stories. They bear the overbearing nature of the climate, the terrain and the harsh whether to see places, to meet victims and witnesses to stories and report them. They share on the SM platforms, of course.
It is okay to lift the story, of course. But in lifting, they don’t even acknowledge. And why this is outright theft is just this. They remove name of the byline and report it as theirs.
But then it begins from the classroom as well. So if you are a final year student of journalism and you find this piece relevant to your topic’s introduction, do not copy and paste, try to acknowledge yours faithfully. Start there.
Hassan Alhaji Hassan can be contacted on 08032829772/08050551220 (text only with full names and address)a[email protected]
The views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect WikkiTimes’ editorial stance.
