By Rev. Fr. George EHUSANI, Executive Director, Lux Terra Leadership Foundation
Continues from LAST WEEK
(iv) It is important to note that the conflict between the people’s right to know as guaranteed by the Constitution, and promoted by the media, and the unholy determination and desperation by authority figures to annul or circumscribe the people’s rights on the grounds that they do not have the need to know, has been responsible in large measure for our continued experience of misgovernance, authoritarianism, unrelenting corruption among public officers, in Nigeria and such other countries where the right to freedom of information is not duly recognised and protected. The attempt to impose exclusivity rights over news by states and powerful institutions, amounts to using information for public evil rather than public good. Now, what should be done to turn information into the public good that it is meant to be?
C. Digital disruption of information transmission: A turning point?
There have been major turning points in the global information ecosystem but perhaps the most impactful would seem to be the “technical reproduceability of the age” as defined by Walter Benjamin. The emergence of the cyberspace or cybersphere has changed the information space as we knew it. Technological innovations have now created new norms:
(a) An information age, which generates information at the speed of light. The speed is now so frenetic that it is difficult to keep up with it.
(b) Interactivity and networked technologies have produced a convergence system that threatens the print media. Are we on the verge of witnessing the “death of the print?” This is something that was unimaginable a century ago. But should we allow the newspaper to die? Shouldn’t newspapers be reinvented in digital format in keeping with the spirit of the age?
(c) News was something we waited for, but not anymore. News now travels at the speed of light! A decade ago, we talked about the emergent 24-hours news cycle. That has now become obsolete. News now goes viral with the touch of the button or a computer click.
(d) We are in the age of the citizen journalist, and the democratization or liberalisation of information, with its many implications that must be constantly interrogated by media practitioners and non-practitioners alike.
(e) This is a new age, the digital age, the age of the new media. Everything has changed: the way we conceive and manage the social contract, the way we participate in politics, the way we do business, the way we engage in teaching and learning; even media theory and the economics of information too. Everything is constantly changing. Have we arrived at Nirvana? Perhaps not. It will be wrong to assume so. The cybernetic revolution in information has brought its own challenges as well, and perhaps therein lies the biggest threat to the promotion of information as a public good.
While the democratization of news, the elimination of exclusive rights to information, the empowerment of the citizen, a re-mapping of the global information order, are enticing fall-outs of the new information trajectory, these are not without new challenges. We can reflect on a few:
(a) The rise and proliferation of FAKE NEWS, MISINFORMATION and DISINFORMATION. The golden rule in information processing and distribution has been accuracy, truthfulness, objectivity and fairness, but now that everyone is a journalist, and the ownership of a smart phone creates an unrestricted and undeterred access to a global information gateway via Facebook, Google, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Webo, etc, anyone at all, in any corner of the world can manufacture news, garnish or manipulate such news and then broadcast it. Not even major global institutions and systems are safe.
(b) The democratization of information has not necessarily reduced the resolve of authoritarian governments and state actors to limit access to information. Many countries have introduced social media monitoring applications, and others have introduced repressive legislations to curtail access. In Africa, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Chad, DRC, Ethiopia and Cameroon have had to cut off internet services at one point or the other in the last three years. Nigerian legislators have attempted several times in the last few years, and in spite of widespread public rejection, they are yet to given up on the “Social Media Bill,” which was re-christened as the “Protection from Internet Falsehoods and Manipulation Bill.” Indeed many governments in Africa and elsewhere constantly seek to restrict access to the internet, and ignore the value of media diversity and plurality.
D. SAVING THE INFORMATION ECOSYSTEM: WHAT TO DO
Joseph Stiglitz, quoted above, says as a public good, information “needs public support”. Yes, but how? A few suggestions:
(a) Multilateral organisations and sub-national actors must continually insist on the right to information as a universal human right as indicated, and agreed upon, in international covenants.
(b) National parliaments must exercise appropriate watchdog functions with regard to the right to information and good governance.
(c) Civil society organisations must develop the capacity to protect the civic space, and to defend and promote the citizens’ right to know, by ensuring that constitutional and legal provisions with regard to access to information are not mere window-dressing.
(d) Media institutions need to be rescued, salvaged or supported in the public interest. They deserve a special status as institutions that are not only providing a public good, but also protecting and promoting the other ingredients of the public good. This may imply that their operations should be subsidised in certain instances, even as they jealously guard their editorial independence. Such subsidy could come by way of tax exemptions such as exemption from corporate income tax or tax breaks as may be so determined.
(e) Media houses also have to consider the following:
(i) There is the need to take a second look at the business model of media houses. Do the challenges of the times not call for more media outfits to go public? Notwithstanding the desirability of plurality and diversity, isn’t it time to consider the possibility of mergers that allow for the pooling of resources?
(ii) Isn’t it for us to advocate that our government begins to impose taxes on international social media platforms that are now taking adverts away from Nigerian Print and broadcast media houses? I am thinking of the proceeds from such taxes being used to subsidise some of our traditional media operations here in Nigeria.
(iii) Has the time not come for an expansion of niche journalism instead of every newspaper doing what others do much better in the now crowded and competitive space?
(iv) Isn’t it time for Media Proprietors and professional organisations like NUJ and IPC to pay serious attention to the welfare of journalists (including better remuneration and hazard insurance packages) as well as matters of ethics and professionalism?
(f) The social media remains a major area of concern. Yet, any form of government regulation in that direction in Nigeria is bound to be abused. Can we then reflect on other possibilities, such as putting pressure on owners and managers of social media platforms, to redefine and enforce their community guidelines more strictly?
E. CONCLUSION
The media is a cornerstone of a free society. The freedom to source information, to process such information, and to disseminate it, is critical for the nurturing and sustenance of a free, democratic and prosperous society. Democracy is understood as self-government. It implies that the people as a whole shall govern themselves. Such self-government is not possible or doomed to fail without an independent and free press. Governments must change their attitude towards media outfits and journalist that express views that are critical of government policies and programmes. When in a constitutional democracy agents and spokespersons of the president openly refer to critics as “enemies of the country,” then we know that it is time to mobilise all the resources at our disposal to wrestle our freedom of speech out of the hands of tyrannical elements in the corridors of power who seek to return Nigeria to the dark ages of military dictatorship.
Freedom of any type is not cheap. It does not come on a platter of gold, as those who hold power often seek to intimidate, coerce unto submission and silence dissenting voices in the society. Thus, press freedom, as indeed the freedom of expression from which it ensues, will hardly every be simply given in our society or anywhere else. Such freedom must be wrestled and seized from the authorities, and thereafter guarded jealously. For as Roseanne Barr says, “nobody gives you power – you just take it.” Therefore while calling on conscientious Journalists and committed Media houses to remain courageous and be ready to take risks in sourcing for and disseminating information, I call on the generality of Nigerians to support journalists and media practitioners in advocating for wide-ranging reform of outdated laws in our statute books that curtail or undermine in any way the free exercise of the right to freedom of expression and press freedom. Broadcast media practitioners are these days constantly on edge, because of certain sections of the 1992 NBC Broadcast Code, which emerged during the military dictatorship of Ibrahim Babangida. It goes without saying that some sections of the said broadcast code may be at variance with democratic norms and standards regarding freedom of expression in general and press freedom in particular. Thank you for listening.
