‘Why Nigerians prefer international media’

Speaking at a roundtable discussion on Identifying and Bridging the Gaps in Media Practice organised by Journalists for Positive Change (J4PC) in Kaduna, Saulawa stated that the local media are either compromised or they compromised themselves.According to him, the international media, most times give authentic news. “A lot of Nigerians today prefer international media to […]

Speaking at a roundtable discussion on Identifying and Bridging the Gaps in Media Practice organised by Journalists for Positive Change (J4PC) in Kaduna, Saulawa stated that the local media are either compromised or they compromised themselves.
According to him, the international media, most times give authentic news. “A lot of Nigerians today prefer international media to local media for authentic news about their own country. For example, you cannot give an half baked story to British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC); they will reject it because you are not their only source. They have other sources especially news agencies including Reuters and AFP among others that they rely on. Even if their underground reporter send a report to them, they will still want to authenticate it by getting another independent source; which is not always so with the local media,” he said.
Saulawa who spoke on ‘The Place of Ethics in Journalism Practice: The Missing Link’ mentioned that many people are into journalism due to lack of job and thus do not know the rudiments of the profession. He therefore stressed the need for media practitioners to strictly adhere to the ethics of journalism.
Earlier in his presentation on ‘The Place of New Media in Contemporary Journalism’, a senior lecturer of Mass Communication with Kaduna Polytechnic, Mr. Samson Fagbemi stated that the new media has come to stay due to its fastness in the dissemination of news items and its accessibility to whoever has the facility.
He however said that something must be done by media professionals to check the quacks from sending out false information to the public during crises especially as the nation is approaching an electioneering year.
“Dishing out false or incorrect information could pose a serious challenge in a crisis situation. A doctor can only kill one person but a false information can set the whole country on fire. We have to check the information that are going out and people must be educated that it is not all information that are on the social media that are given by professional journalists,” he said.
Fagbemi further urged the media to educate the public on the importance of cross checking information obtained from the social media to avoid misinterpretation.