Journalists and Life After Newsroom

By Jide Oluwajuyitan

Globally, the media is controlled by a combination of large corporate conglomerates that have cornered a disproportionate share of world resources and those masquerading behind these conglomerates are the real owners of society. If anyone is in doubt, all he has to do is to take a look at the colour and character of owners of newspapers and news platforms here in Nigeria.

And ownership for the owners of society is critical if they must control the mind of members of their empire of slaves. In pursuit of this endeavour, besides highly educated and knowledgeable journalists needed to sometimes do their hatchet job, the other critical institution is government, peopled by seasoned and versatile politicians that know how to reconcile the conflict between their insatiable demand and the rising expectation of the rest of us. And of course their demand for freedom without responsibility is not difficult to secure because they do not only decide who wins election in any society, they dictate the policy direction for every government.

As for the journalists, someone has described them as “working-class wage earner” dressed in “upper-class intellectual clothing.” On the global social ladder, they are generally located within the middle class to upper-middle class. But because of their high cultural capital (education and knowledge) which often does not translate to wealth, they enjoy a measure of prestige even while they remain ordinary working citizens.

Unfortunately, most journalists suffer from illusion of power. Because they have been given an opportunity to dine with the owners of society, who in their magnanimity also extended to them some privileges including furnished houses in exclusive part of town, good cars, sponsored foreign holiday, senior editors and news anchor start to claim equality with their masters.

Here we recall Stanley Macebuh who was eased out of The Guardian he had thought was a joint venture for “selling sugar’, uncle Sam Amuka, aka “sad Sam’. who started the Vanguard in his garage at his Anthony Village residence when it finally dawned on him that a man’s economic standing determines his position on the social ladder or Lade Bonuola who s imply walked out rather than rock the boat.

The problem with celebrated editors is that they often ignore the admonition of Babatunde Jose, the doyen of the Nigerian press that “journalists must learn how to walk the tight rope”. They serve their masters as slaves either as a result of unaffected commitment to professionalism or to impress mentor who unfortunately loves none but self.

The picture that comes to mind is Dele Giwa who staked his present and future to serve MKO Abiola. MKO Abiola had set up his Concord newspaper claiming it was “out for harmony, unity, peace, friendhip, understanding and cooperation” But it soon became obvious it was designed to destroy the Awolowo myth, with Giwa’s Sunday Concord’s celebrated exposure of Awolowo’s alleged ownership of 300 plots Maroko land.

The truth was that Awolowo had served as a lawyer to the owners of Maroko land and was later paid in kind with some plots. Shortly after Giwa’s hatchet job, MKO Abiola became a zealot critic of NPN and by 1993 had reconciled with followers of Awolowo. Giwa was in a way saved by his untimely death.

While highly successful editors mortgage their tomorrow in the service of their today’s masters, they also hardly make friends among the media house work force. They often treat those other professionals with disdain. They show little interest in the activities of other professionals such as marketing, advertising, sales and distribution. This is perhaps why they are often unable to successfully manage their own outfit after their exit.

I have consulted for a newspaper where the distribution strategy was to print and hand over to their appointed sales executives who would be expected to come and do reconciliation of sales fortnightly. There was another one where reporters and even senior editors exploit their beats and contacts to collect credit adverts whose source can hardly be traced if they exit the organisation.

Journalists and their editors must realise that why the newsroom requires creativity, productivity and high degree of professionalism, there is no law barring editors from setting up businesses of their own.

And for those who have no business orientation, they can as members of the intellectual elite, opt for intellectual pursuit. When I told a very brilliant but very cynical colleague of mine in the Daily Times in 1982 that I was planning to abandon my PhD programme because of my new juicy job with another newspaper, he simply reminded me that Ernest Ikoli died in an hotel because he had no house even as a celebrated editor of the Daily Times. The problem is often our sense of illusion about our real place on the social ladder.

Young journalists must be wary of ill-educated mischief makers who do not understand what government is but out of ignorance and indolence, declare everyone in government a thief. Government rather than being the enemy is the only safeguard against the tyranny of the owners of society who may wake up tomorrow and decide we must pay for the air we breathe.

And government, by the way, is the best example of how the elite theory works for all professionals. A bureaucrat once told me of how the rent collected from a structure a builder helped to erect on plot allocated to him in Victoria Island was enough to buy two duplexes in Ilupeju. While some of us ranted, some of our colleagues who bought Ikoyi plots from Obasanjo’s administration have today erected skyscrapers where it is said rents are paid in dollars.

Those who believe in legitimate acquisition of wealth are not evil just as those who do not. It is a question of orientation. There is a sociological explanation for why President Donald Trump’s children will consider themselves smart and while children of President Jimmy Carter who see acquisition as madness will consider themselves even smarter.

Finally, life after newsroom starts from the newsroom; the duty a journalist owes the public is to interpret policies of government. Those who have deviated from this noble cause and today daily assault the sensibilities of Nigerians by dumb question such as ‘’is your life today better than it was under Jonathan” without providing context, will discover when out of the newsroom, that Nigerians are not made up of only unthinking ‘obidients’ that today fund their platforms.

NOTE: Views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of the Spynews.