When editors spoke on business for media survival

Editors and media managers from around the country discuss in Port Harcourt, Rivers State the need to encourage the business aspect of the sector.   For five days, from September 20 to 25, over 300 editors under the platform of the Nigeria Guild of Editors (NGE) were in Port Harcourt, Rivers State to deliberate on […]

Editors and media managers from around the country discuss in Port Harcourt, Rivers State the need to encourage the business aspect of the sector.

 

For five days, from September 20 to 25, over 300 editors under the platform of the Nigeria Guild of Editors (NGE) were in Port Harcourt, Rivers State to deliberate on issues that will chart a new course for the survival of media industry in the present harsh economic recession.

The conference, with theme “Nigeria Media, Balancing Professionalism and Business,” tagged All Nigeria Editors Conference and Extra Ordinary Convention was the 13th edition. It was also the second hosted by Rivers State government.

The conference afforded participants the opportunity to look into issues that affect the industry as it concerns its survival in a dwindling economy and the welfare of practitioners. 

The president of the Guild, Funke Egbemode, stressed the need for editors to be mindful of the demands of the work in a point that they may retire broke.

She said it was time for editors to think of entrepreneurship to take care of themselves just as they think of working professionally. She revealed that an “Editors Business Group” had been set up to guide editors in entrepreneurship.

Egbemode lamented that the media is a besieged and beleaguered industry where the profession and the professionals are not in good standing. 

According to her, the recession may be receding in other sectors but not in the media, explaining that media predates the nationally recognized one.

On the whole, the President noted that plans are underway to offer scholarship to children in Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp and establish editors farm states in some states and Abuja as part of its corporate social responsibility. 

A media expert and chairman, Nigerian Institute of Journalism Governing Council, Mallam Isma’ila Funtua, urged the editors to curb abuses in online and social media platforms.

Funtua who was the chairman of the conference said the media was being attacked by unqualified individuals and Nigeria is the only country where online news is free.

He also enjoined publishers and media owners to pay salaries of their workers, adding that prompt payment would discourage gratifications in the profession.

The keynote speaker and Managing Director of The Interview Magazine, Mr Azubuike Ishiekwene, said for a medium to survive, it has to hire a proven executive director that would have specific measurable business targets.

Ishiekwene who was one-time editor of Punch newspaper and Group Managing Director of Leadership Newspapers Group, said media owners should get sponsorship from any of the global media giants with interest in developing countries.

He also called for the rejuvenation of the ethics and disciplinary committee. He advised that the public should be carried along by providing channels through which they may approach it when they have complaints. 

According to him, editors must raise the game as single-minded focus on journalism is the strongest for advocacy.

“Until and unless you get your journalism right and pursue it with single-minded focus, you will be wasting your time. If our profession is in trouble today, it’s because we the professionals have sacrificed on the altar of business poor ethics,” he noted.

The Chairman, Board of Directors, Media Trust Limited, Mallam Kabiru Yusuf, delivered a paper titled “The media as business, the print aspect.”

The Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki, represented by Chairman, Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Senator Aliyu Abdullahi, in a paper titled “Legislative Efforts and Focus on Pro-poor issues, National Assembly perspective,” assured that the National Assembly was alive and sensitive to its constitutional responsibilities and roles.

He said the lawmakers would continue to create the enabling environment to produce “the greatest access to opportunity in a united and prosperous nation for generations yet unborn.”

Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, who declared the conference opened, said that the country is in crisis because of poor governance, nepotism and marginalization.

He said: “At times like this, the country needs forthright leadership and consensus building to steer the ship of state from the wrong direction it is headed to safer grounds.”

The governor noted that the clamour for political restructuring, fiscal federalism, state police and guarantees for free and fair elections have never been so determined across the country.

Governor Wike regretted that despite the monumental achievements of his administration, the opposition in the state has continued to undermine development, with tacit support from the Federal Government and a politically inclined police.

The publisher of Thisday Newspaper and President, Newspaper Proprietors’ Association of Nigeria (NPAN), Mr Nduka Obiagbena, called on media managers to develop strong brands to overcome the challenge posed by social media.

In a ten-point communiqué at the end of the conference signed by Funke and the Secretary General of the Guild, Victoria Ibanga, noted that the media had been and still experience a crisis of recession which presupposes that government would need to do more to ensure an conducive environment that is conducive to encourage the sector to flourish.

The editors agreed that while retaining professional excellence, they would also need to explore other revenue yielding ventures or business prospects to ensure that life after their editorial assignments was not a nightmare.

The communiqué also decided that editors, in addition to their editorial functions, should concern themselves with the business side of the media to ensure that their establishments thrive and business after retirement would be knowledge-based and experience-enriched.

The conference enjoined Mass Communication departments and Journalism training institutions to include business courses in their curricular, so as to prepare future editors for business of the media industry.

The editors agreed that the NPAN and the media stakeholders should collaborate to ensure the setting up of newsprint production companies and resuscitation of the moribund Oku Iboku company in Akwa Ibom State, so as to address the crisis of high cost of imported newsprint.

On the welfare of retired journalists, the communiqué appealed to both the federal and state governments to pay outstanding gratuities and pensions of retired editors and other classes of retirees to make life meaningful.

The Guild also regretted the encroachment of its land in Guzape, Abuja and appreciates the promise by the FCT Minister to redress the situation.