Radio Nigeria and its partisanship

After the recent PDP National Convention held in Abuja, Radio Nigeria kept playing back Goodluck Jonathan’s acceptance speech after each hour every hour, but neglected to do the same for the APC presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari, not even once. Fairness in journalism means treating issues involving two or more parties without bias or partiality […]

After the recent PDP National Convention held in Abuja, Radio Nigeria kept playing back Goodluck Jonathan’s acceptance speech after each hour every hour, but neglected to do the same for the APC presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari, not even once.
Fairness in journalism means treating issues involving two or more parties without bias or partiality while balance is giving of equal treatment to parties involved in any issue. I don’t want to talk about accuracy and objectivity I have mentioned above because fairness and balance seemed to be more suitable to use in respect to the issue I am addressing.
Examining the prominence or preferential treatment Radio Nigeria is giving to the PDP to the exclusion of APC, can one say that Radio Nigeria that is the largest network in Africa and sustained by public money, uplifting the people and uniting the nation and being fair and balanced? Why is Radio Nigeria uplifting and uniting PDP only in its coverage? Despite the fact that PDP is the party controlling the present government and is in charge of the media in question does not mean Radio Nigeria belongs to PDP members only. Radio Nigeria is for all Nigerians, whether PDP or APC, rich or poor, Christians or Muslims, short or tall, and so on.
I want to tell the controllers at Radio Nigeria and other media houses in the country that as a matter of responsibility and necessity and as far as journalism profession is concerned, media must take into cognizance the four most important qualities of the profession (accuracy, objectivity, fairness and balance) in practice. I remember when NTA messed up by broadcasting a story formulated by the enemies of justice against one Mr. Ahmed Isa, popularly known as ordinary Ahmed without caring to investigate the story to enable the station hear from ordinary Ahmed as the story was against him. I don’t want to go into the details, but it is like government-owned media organizations across the country are into this habit of giving preferential treatment to only people in government.  The time to stop partiality in journalism profession and embrace the modern day journalism practice is now.

Awunah Pius Terwase, Benue State University <[email protected]>;