Evincing the Underlap
Acta Diurman (Daily Acts, where daily Roman minutes of political and social events written on stone and metal were presented in public places,) persons gushing out to listen to Town Criers in Ancient Africa, Print Journalism and people lying down on their beds and reading news published thousands of miles away — all combine to highlight one human condition, the curiousness about our society and the eagerness to be informed about the happenings around us.
This desire to be informed gave birth to journalism as we know it and birthed journalistic innovation, its evolution and adaptation to old and emerging demands of the human society. New technologies and new competitors have led to the reinvention of the wheel; it’s like Game of Thrones now, you either win or you die. In a world of social media notifications, email subscriptions, trends and post promotions — wins in news media are only temporary, and media outlets do anything and everything to survive and that includes tabloid journalism, photo news, video and document leaks, and to fake news. These have further given birth to disinformation, manipulation, hate speech and stochastic terrorism; effectively creating a third generation of negative journalism.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, religious leaders dropped harmful messages and videos for gullible followers to consume, be misled (this may not have been their intentions but hey!) and to further spread the message. The misinformation negatively affected government’s efforts to enforce safety guidelines, and further shows that the Information revolution might be a bit far—fetched, yes, we are a knowledge-based society with the world at our fingertips but what use is unsubstantiated knowledge?
Traditional media houses are the go-to but new competitors are springing up daily. Why? One doesn’t need to undergo training to become a journalist, anyone can pay for a blog and he is all game. Both old and new medium are not immune to fake news — accusations have been thrown at them from different sides of many divides for creating and promoting “we vs them” mantras in fragile aspects of our union.
So, it is little wonder that at the opposite end of the people’s desire to be informed lies the government, trying to regulate what the people hear and what the people see, especially on Social Media. It is important in the maintenance of law and order, it has been argued, and it could also be a ploy to silence dissenting voices, it has been counter-argued. Either way, Nigeria’s bond is not the strongest and both legal and illegal changes of government or large scale conflicts like a civil war have been and can still be orchestrated through well-coordinated and consisted media propaganda.
A look at the pros also shows that the online medium is cheaper and more accessible to readers and easier for writers to publish. The problem lies in verifying what is written. CNN during the #EndSARS protests showed the steps we can take in substantiating information. Some news outlets were fined by the NBC for the way they covered the protests when CNN used videos recorded with phones which they geotagged to the scene of the protests. Geotagging is very cheap and can be done with a free android application, so why are our News Medium not using it? Apart from avoiding fines, it will also help them earn the trust of their readers.
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