with Sule Musa (WhatsApp +23276613799)

Are They for Real?

It was at the funeral service of a colleague and friend, James Williams, fondly called Jay Willie who died earlier on 31 August last year, that another comrade, Kelvin Lewis and I got talking about the unenviable condition of our journalism profession, lying, literarily, in a coma.

Since the gathering at the Wilberforce village Church (Freetown) was mostly media practitioners, with the exception of family members and other friends of the deceased, journalism; especially, its current outlook, was a natural topic of discussion.  

Primarily, even at such sombre occasions, journalists were known with their ebullience, joviality, wits and humour.  

The difference was now noticeable.

Nearly everything journalism depended upon to thrive was being chiseled off by the circumstances of new technologies and other emerging challenges. Media lifeline, advertisement, keep declining with abiding regularity. Men and women in power and business who befriended the media have reversed the charm as they are now the bride to be wooed. So, to speak.

The irony is staggering. Instead of the regular press conferences or briefing, media chats, press releases and interviews, the newsmakers have dug holes and hidden themselves in cubicles of Instagram, X (formerly twitter), Facebook and the many other social media channels to reveal information on their own terms. From here, like vultures after dead meat, the traditional media now jostle to scoop news.

This way, the newsmakers attract as much coverage as they have always enjoyed without having to spend a farthing or expose themselves to the inconveniences of interviews where journalists delight in asking, at times, jaw dropping questions.  

Corporate institutions too are learning fast. “Go to our website”, (for any information) has become standard response to any request for interviews, news, information or clarifications sought in line of duty.

Wondering aloud, I raised my stare to level at Kelvin, “can we expect sympathy or intervention from powers and the privileged?”

“Oh! hell no!” Kelvin shot back at me. “They are celebrating instead. They pay bloggers (most without the definition of journalism in their heads) handsomely and offer (insulting) pittance to established media houses to disseminate information.”

That was hard hitting. I had been temporarily off the media practice and just resuming.  

I began weighing how the media can truly perform its role as the fourth restate under the circumstance. I moved to question myself if those in authority actually believe in the role of the media in democracy and governance. Then my mind dragged to the United States; so-called bastion of democracy.

Just as quickly, I was forced to ruminate the person of Donald John Trump, the 45th and 47th President of the United States of America.

For what may have sounded sacrilegious one moment before Trump was sworn-in to office, he called the media, the American media so revered around the world, “fake media”.

Dictators from North Korea to Russia were contented with muzzling their local media; without needing to rubbish it as Trump did.

Trump had come to power aiming to govern like dictators he openly admired. To discard of the media, he needed an alternative outlet. Social media was waiting to be employed and deployed. Needless to assert that the social media offer a dictator, or corrupt leaders, elbowing the public from demands for accountability, a ready alternative.

A safe haven because, with the social media, the leader can communicate directly with the people without necessarily going through the “assertive media”. Better still, the leaders, in and out office; be they aspirants, can engage the hordes of bloggers to spread doctored news and information.

The bloggers, most of whom are strangers in the field of journalism, have no training or capacity to verify the information handed to them; much less, ask follow-up questions.

Let’s bear in mind, equally, that this relationship with bloggers could begin to boomerang; sooner or later. As long as they are not regulated in any form, their current patrons could easily turn to their victims.     

At the end, democracy, good governance and national development are sacrificed for the joy of snubbing journalists and the media; traditional, as they are now known.

Beginning, in Sierra Leone, from around the 2018 general elections when presidential campaign media managers downgraded their job to taking scenic pictures of themselves on the campaign trail, it’s dumbfounding that politicians aspiring for offices have become lethargic to deal with journalists while they are allover the social media. Men in power, including those aspiring, have now become as slippery as an eel.

When the late American President Thomas Jefferson reportedly said, “given the circumstances of a country without a government or a country without the media, I will gladly choose the former,” he could not have known or thought about the social media.

Without seeking to discredit the social media, since, admissions must be made that it has its own advantages, including speed and audience scale – crying for attention here is patriotism. It is tantamount to cutting corners when those in authority, or aspiring to power, become afraid of scrutiny and transparency.

It doesn’t take much to know that the media, standing for information, transparency and accountability, are vital for the rigorous processes of development.

Simply put, the media is those eyes and ears that those in authority need to communicate and relate with their populace since they, the leaders, cannot be everywhere. Similarly, the public use the same channel to interact with their leaders.

Of course, there are those who come across as hostile. But it comes with the territory. The way to disarm hostile encounter is to readily advance transparency. Besides, as late Indian leader Indira Ghandi would say, “when doctors make mistakes; they bury their victims and when lawyers make mistakes; they hang their victims but when journalists make mistakes; they put it on the frontpage.”

Reversing to Trump who infamously led the attack against the media, the chaos occasioning his presidency, past and present, is hardly the envy of leadership. With the drunken excesses of raiding a fellow head of government out of power in Venezuela, indicating interest and wanting to take Greenland by force of arms and the assassination in Iran of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader; even as members of the US senate and other world leaders condemn his actions – these and more – are hardly actions of a wise counsel worthy of emulation.

It’s neither too late nor too early for the global communities to rise to the occasion and craft away for the sustainability of the media. Let it be said therefore, that the media is not solely the business of its practitioners if the civilized world must continue to make progress. Technology needs not reverse man.