Table of Contents
Summary
An opening
The Nigerian media: Ethical issues
Societal Problems
Job-related matters
In short, the article outlines the reasons why it is important to have a strong business plan and how it can help a company succeed.
Summary
The media, as an important medium of disseminating information, has a responsibility to tell the truth. A competitive media industry has led to guidelines governing the media becoming rules meant to break. This paper will shed light on the nature of the media and various ethical issues that may hinder their duty towards the public.
IntroductionEthics is a set moral principles that guide the behaviour of a person. The values they represent also guide the behavior of people in certain environments and situations. The ethical principles of a Pan-Atlantic University will be different from those that govern a club or a cinema.
Media ethics is a set moral rules or principles that guide all media sectors. This means that media professionals must promote and defend values such as honesty, impartiality or humanity.
Media ethics can be a problem for media practitioners. They may face problems ranging from bias to manipulation.
They are the professional groups that guide media in Nigeria. These are just a few:
This regulatory body was created to regulate journalism in Nigeria. The media also acts as a link between the press and public.
This is an association of Nigerian professionals, the Nigerian Guild of Editors.
Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria: This is an association of professional newspaper owners in Nigeria.
The National Association of Women Journalists (NAWJ) is a group that seeks to promote women journalists and increase their access to the media.
Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria: This is an agency which regulates advertising. Advertising practitioners must follow the rules set by the council or face penalties.
Media professionals are apathetic and do not adhere to the rules that have been set up.
Ethics in Nigerian MediaThere is a strong loyalty to a tribe or group of people and vigilance for their protection. It includes behaviours or attitudes that come from a deep loyalty to a social group or tribe.
It can also be a lackluster attitude towards other tribes/groups or a promotion of the tribe/group that one belongs to as being superior.
Media bias is a problem as some journalists are biased against other tribes, and prefer their own.
If a Kaduna native is covering Boko Haram, they may be more emotional as they can better relate to their story. They would not feel the same way if the story was about killings in south Nigeria.
Media professionals are fiercely competitive in Nigeria, and they sometimes resort to unethical practices to obtain a news story. This includes compromising privacy in the pursuit of a story. Most of the times, this happens to grab the interest of people who may be interested. A media house might publish intimate and personal details about an afrobeat music star to attract the attention of his fans.
Invasion of privacy is a form of harassment that can be dangerous to both the person being violated and those around them.
This is an overly generalized belief about one group of people. In Nigeria, stereotypes include that Igbos are rich and dirty while Hausas are uneducated.
Stereotyping affects media coverage because it is not an accurate portrayal of how people behave in general. People who do not interact with Hausas will start to think that they are all uneducated.
Media practitioners must not use stereotypes to describe groups of people, but should accurately represent individuals without using stereotypes.
A death threaten is a warning from a person to kill someone else or another group. Death threats can be anonymous. This is done to intimidate victims and manipulate their behaviour. This is usually done to keep certain information from reaching the public.
A letter bomb killed Nigerian Journalist Dele Giwa. He was at that time a fervent critic of Nigerian authorities and did not give in to their demands.
It means that even in cases where the media regulators are doing a good job, some people still use violence to try to control them and conceal information.
Professional IssuesThis action involves receiving or requesting payment from an individual for refusing to reveal damaging/negative data about them.
Blackmail in Nigeria can occur when a journalist creates a story, and is then blackmailed by people who want to reveal personal information or ask the person being blackmailed to meet certain criteria.
It’s unethical to keep the information about public events from them. That would be against the ethics that guide media.
A person, business, group or nation’s reputation can be damaged by this act.
There are two types of defamation: libel and slander. Medial slander and libel are expressed through music, images, or dialogues.
Defamation occurs when a journalist makes false claims about a prominent public person’s past bad behavior.
Defamation has a big impact in that if a reporter is found to have published lies, it would go against everything the media stands for which is to always report the truth.
A failure to comply with this rule can result in a loss of trust and damage the reputations of both media houses and journalists.
It can also be detrimental to the person who was slandered or the group, as some members of society may have not continued the story. They will see them for what they had been painted earlier.
This is the fabrication of false or untrue information to tell an interesting story. It is not uncommon for Nigerian media outlets, and particularly social media sites, to fabricate stories in order to increase clicks. Public trusting the media will believe that the story is well researched, but in reality it may be fabricated.
A media license is a permit that legitimizes and authorizes media houses to operate. Media licenses are important and shouldn’t be handed out to any group of media. Media houses can now buy media licenses if they have the money.
Media professionals can be lazy and less committed to their work.
To consent is to ask for permission. Media professionals will seek the permission of a creator before publishing or using their content. In many cases, media professionals have taken other creators’ work and used it without asking their permission. Online media is notorious for this practice, as people are able to easily use another’s work without contacting the creator or even mentioning it.
It is the act of stealing another’s ideas, thoughts or work and passing them off as your own. The Nigerian media is a problem because of the laziness with which media professionals approach their work. The media professionals in Nigeria are now lazy and prefer to stay at their desks to search the internet for information and sources to write a story. While some media professionals think it’s a quick way to get out of trouble, they face severe consequences if caught. They could lose their credibility and have their reputation damaged.
SummaryEven in Nigeria with all of the media regulation bodies, we have an ethical problem. These bodies are responsible for regulating the media in Nigeria, but journalists also play a role. Penalties should not be necessary to get people to act right. Media people may find it difficult to separate their emotions from the truth, but this is part of the job. Media professionals must be objective, fair and truthful.
