‘Community newspapers affected by poor patronage’

Shabul Mazadu is the publisher of The Beacon, a community newspaper in Plateau State. He explains some difficulties surrounding community newspapers in Nigeria among others.    How have community newspapers been faring in the country? In every location or community, inhabitants have different approaches and reading cultures. These differences determine how the community newspapers operate. […]

Shabul Mazadu is the publisher of The Beacon, a community newspaper in Plateau State. He explains some difficulties surrounding community newspapers in Nigeria among others. 

 

How have community newspapers been faring in the country?

In every location or community, inhabitants have different approaches and reading cultures. These differences determine how the community newspapers operate. By and large however, the reading culture in Nigeria is not encouraging, while the online mode of disseminating news today has drastically and negatively affected the production of community newspapers. Most of the youths prefer to just go online to read anything posted there. Some just go to the newsstand and enjoy free reading of the papers. 

In states like Lagos, Akwa Ibom and Benue among others, local papers are always on the newsstand and sometimes compete with national newspapers in terms of sales because the readers patronize them and want to know of happenings in their communities. But in other states, local newspapers are not vibrant and are barely known.

 

Community newspapers are basically established to give good coverage at the grassroots. To what extent are the community newspapers doing this?

Community newspapers to some extent are covering the grassroots and communal happenings well. But they find it difficult to sustain production due to poor commercial patronage. Most people at the grassroots are interested in knowing the happenings across the state in its entirety. As such, the community papers are trying their best in feeding them with the information. They carry information on local politics, healthcare systems, local sporting events, cultural festivals, land disputes, chieftaincy matters and tussles and other activities which may not interest the entire country.

 

Unlike the community radio which broadcasts in local languages for the sake of their audiences, what styles are the community newspapers adopting to connect with their audiences?

I think this also boils down to various communities. There are communities that are highly homogeneous by tribal inclination and such communities are enlightened and have so many books written in their languages. In such communities, you will find newspapers written in their languages. On the other hand, communities with different tribes making up the population, most of their papers are published in English.

There are other segmentation and divisions. For instance, if you print a paper in Berom language in Plateau State, automatically it is the Berom people that will patronize you. But you will have to consider the percentage of Beroms that read papers in the state before you publish. At the end you will find out that a good number of tribes may not be newspaper readers. With such, one is automatically putting himself out of business. 

 

What are the general challenges of running a community newspaper?

Community newspapers are confronted with the challenge of consistently hitting the newsstands due to poor patronage. And sometimes, even the grassroots they cover don’t patronize them. Poor patronage here refers to getting adverts. That implies that there is inadequate funding.