Overview of The Media Ethics in Nigerian Media Industry

Abstract

As an important form of information dissemination, the media has a duty to always tell the truth and nothing but the truth. However, due to the competitive nature of the media industry guidelines which govern the media are starting to become rules which are meant to be broken. This paper aims at shedding light what the media industry is supposed to be and the various ethical issues which could hinder them from their duty to the public.

Introduction

Ethics can be defined as a set of moral principles which guide a person’s behaviour. They are also the values that guide behavior in certain situations and environments. For instance the ethics that guide behaviour in Pan-Atlantic university will not be the same as the ethical principles that a cinema or a club.

This means that media ethics can be defined as a set of moral principles or rules which guide all sectors of the media . This involves media practitioners promoting and defending values such as truthfulness, impartiality, humanity, accountability etc.

Ethical issues facing the media are problems which media practitioners face in regards to media ethical practices and this could range from the manipulation of news to impartiality.

These are the professional bodies which are responsible for guiding media practices in Nigeria. Here are a few of them:

• The Nigerian Press Council - this regulatory body was set to regulate journalism practice in Nigeria. They also serve as the bridge between the press and the public.
• The Nigerian Guild of Editors - this is a professionals association for Nigerian editors.
• The Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria - this is a professional association which involves Nigerian newspaper owners.
• The National Association of Women Journalists - an association which deals with promoting women practicing journalism and also seeks to increase the access to media and leadership roles of women in Nigeria.
• The Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria -this is a regulatory body which involves the approval of advertisements. Advertising practitioners have to follow the rules and regulations which have been set or else they shall face penalties.

Although there is a presence of all these media regulatory bodies in Nigeria we still face ethical problems due the fact that there is practically no regulatory system put in place for online media,, there is a laid back manner media professionals have when approaching their work and there is disregard for the rules which have been put in place.

Ethical Issues Faced in the Nigerian Media

This is a strong loyalty and intense protection of an individual's tribe or social group. It involves behaviours and attitudes that stem from a strong loyalty to one’s tribe or social group.

It also involves lack of interest in other tribes/ groups and promotes one’s own tribe/group as the more superior one.

It affects media activities as some media practitioners have bias against people from other tribes and tend to favour their own tribes.

An example is a Native of Kaduna giving a story on Boko Haram and their recent killings might show more emotions because he or she can relate to the them more but will not do same if reporting on killings in the south of Nigeria.

Social Issues

Media practitioners in Nigeria are very competitive and sometimes this leads them to resorting to some unethical ways of retrieving a story. Some of these unethical ways include breaching the privacy of individuals which a related to a story. This is done most times to get the attention of audiences who might be interested in the information. An example of this is a media house publishing personal and intimate details about a popular afrobeat musician in order to garner the interest of his fans who they know will be interested in the information.

This invasion of privacy attracts unwanted attention to these people and can put them and the people surrounding them in danger due to intimate parts of their lives being exposed to the public.

This is a widely overgeneralized belief about a particular category of people about a particular category of people. An example of stereotypes in Nigeria are Igbo people are too money, Yoruba people are dirty and Hausa people are uneducated.

Stereotyping is a social issue that affects the media because it does not give an accurate representation about how a group of people generally behave. As a result of this people who don't generally with Hausa people for example will begin to believe that all Hausa people are uneducated and this is not the case.

Nigeria is filled with diverse people and media practitioners should not be lazy and stick to stereotypes when reporting on groups of individuals but report individuals accurately without resorting to stereotypes.

A death threat is a threat by a person or a group to kill another person or group. Death threats are often made anonymously. The main purpose of this is to intimidate the victims in order to manipulate their behavior. It is normally done in order to prevent certain information from going out to the public.

An example of this can be the death by letter bomb of Nigerian journalist Dele Giwa. He was a rampant critic of the Nigerian Government at the time and never gave into their demands.

This means that in most instances where media regulators are doing their jobs well, individuals will still resort to violent means in order to coerce the regulators and hide information from the public.

Professional Issues

This involves an action of receiving/demanding payment or benefits from an individual in return for not revealing damaging/negative information about them to the public.

In Nigeria blackmail may happen in an instance in which the media man generates a story and he is blackmailed by individuals which personal information to the public or the subject of the damaging story could be asked by the journalist to fulfil some criteria in order to kill a story.

This is unethical as the public has the right to know about what is going on around them and hiding the their information from them goes against the ethical principle which guides the media.

This is the act of damaging the good reputation of an individual, business, group, nation etc.

It comes in two forms which are libel (written form of defamation) or slander (oral form of defamation). In the media libel is expressed through written words (articles or features) while slander can be expressed through musical images and dialogues.

An example of defamation is an instance in which a journalist publishes falsely that a predominant public figure has engaged in some unsavoury behavior in the past.

Defamation is a very big issue is the sense that the journalist if caught publishing lies would have gone against the whole point of the media which is to tell the truth always.

Failing to do this leads a loss of credibility and harm to reputation of both the media house and the journalist.

It also will negatively affect the person or group that has been slandered because some members of the public who may not have followed the story further will see him for what he was portrayed as earlier.

This involves the creation of information which is not true or based in fact to tell a story. In Nigeria media institutions nowadays, especially in social media it involves creating a story out of thin air just to generate buzz and clicks. Fabrication of stories deceive the public who trust the media and believe that proper research has been done on the story meanwhile some of it or all of it has been fabricated.

A media license can be defined as a permit which legitimizes a media house and allows them carry out their operations. Due to the importance of a media license it should not just handed over to any media group. Now media houses are basically just dashed media licenses as long s they can afford it.

This allows media professionals approach their jobs with lax attitudes and reduces the quality of their works.

Consent involves taking permission in order to do something. Consent in media deals with media professionals seeking permission from a content creator in order to publish or use their work. There have been many instances in which media practitioners have made use of other creators work without seeking their permission or referencing them at all. This is something that is extremely rampant in online media where people can easily pick up and use other’s content without contacting or referencing the creator.

This is defined as the wrongful appropriation of another author's thoughts, work or ideas and passing it across as one’s own work. It is an issue in the Nigerian media industry due to the fact that media professionals in Nigeria now have a lazy attitude when approaching their jobs. Now instead of going into the field to do some research and source for a story they would rather just sit at their desk, search online for it, change a couple of words and go ahead to publish the story. Some media professionals see it as see it as an easy way out as long as they are not caught, but the moment they will face huge consequences such as a loss of credibility and damage of reputation of the persons involved.

Summary

Even with all the media regulatory bodies present in Nigeria we still have a problem with media ethics. Of course, the responsibility of regulating media practice in Nigeria falls on these bodies but media people also have their own role to play as well. There shouldn’t be any need for penalties to be put in place before they do the right thing. As a media person, there would some difficulty to remove your feelings and emotions with what is true but it comes with the job. As a media person objectivity, fairness and truthfulness comes first.