• Adesuwa Onyenokwe Photo: Sun News Publishing

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With a career spanning over 20 years, the name Adesuwa Onyenokwe needs no introduction in the media industry in Nigeria. Having spent a greater number of these years in the electronic media, Adesuwa says the fame and glamour that comes with journalism, as well as operational hazards, are the major challenges of a broadcast journalist.

She said that the best thing to have ever happened to the media industry was its liberalization. According to her, this has increased the vibrancy in the industry, as according to her, competition brings growth, quality and diversity.

Working with the NTA
I term myself a broadcast journalist primarily. That is what I trained to do and did in the past 25 years and still do it, because I have earned my own television programme, Today’s Woman with Adesuwa, on the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) Network. I present One-On-One. I am one of the presenters of the programme and have been doing it for about eight years now. I used to work with the NTA until 1998 when I retired to be on my own.

TW magazine
Recently, I started publishing a life-style magazine that is called Totally Whole magazine for today’s woman, which is like an expansion of what I do on television. That precisely is what I do. I graduated in 1983. That makes me 25 years in the industry as at now.

Challenges
This might be new to some people, but some others who have read the interviews I’ve had in the past will know that to every job, the first challenge is getting to know the job. Learning something in school is not the same thing as practicing it. When you come out, you are faced with deadlines. You are going to cover an assignment and must deliver it at a particular time. And you are faced with the things that make the job happen like the television, camera, and the car that’s going to take you to the event. The lightening, reading the story and the voice, putting it together with the editing. These are different things you have to do.

In doing this job, you face different challenges. Sometimes, you could have 10 to five minutes with just two cameras. And then, you just have to juggle and see how to get the job done. Sometimes too, the assignment you are going to cover lasts till late in the night and you have a family.

You’ll be wondering how you are going to handle it. All you want to do is finish your work quickly and go home. If you don’t get a camera, you can’t go out. And then, sometimes, your job takes you outside your goal. The bigger challenges are those that have to do with operation of the business.
Then, of course, on the personal side, working in the television, you are doing a job that you are visible. So people have this impression that you are big and up there.

And you probably do not have a car. In the early days, we didn’t have cars and you have to do the job. The challenge of the mindset is there. Somebody with a lesser mind, not confident enough won’t do this job too well. Even if he does, it’s a big challenge. People believe the job is glamorous.
They see you on television. They rate you high. And then, they see you take taxi or bus. That’s one challenge.
Also on the personal side, there is the challenge of being recognized and knowing how to respond to everybody. People will see and know you. They may not even remember your name but they know they have seen you somewhere. They expect you to say hello. Everybody think they own you because they see and relate with you through the programmes or the work you do.

The media and technology
There are different stages in a nation’s growth. At any point in time, there’s always vibrancy in journalism. In Nigeria, the privatization of the media industry. We see the vibrancy has increased because there is more competition. Anywhere there ‘s competition, there’s growth.

Where there’s real growth, you get quality and diversity. Now, we have many stations. We have NTA. We have STV. We have Minaj, and others. You can see that the quality of programming is high, especially in Lagos where we have more stations than other parts of Nigeria.
With this competition, there is high demand for journalists.
There is high demand for good journalists too. Even as we have more journalists, we have a lot of dirty journalism. As a result of the competition, people are being sensational. But then, the public is discerning. They decide what to read or where to go. Your newspaper (The Sun Newspapers) for example, came out and people began to tabloid news. It treats human angle stories. It’s a big market.

Need for training
Certainly, there is great need for training and retraining of journalists. However, the fact still remains that we really do not have enough training institute for journalists in the country.
In the past, people learn by being apprentices. They start somewhere in the newsroom maybe by making tea or coffee and you begin to grow. But anybody with basic university education or a basic higher education can learn the trade.

Fearless journalism
The media is as free as it wants to be. I believe there are different ways of reporting a story. Sensationalism does not work for me but stories that change the society. If you do stories that change the society, it doesn’t matter what it is. Once you are telling the truth, you do according to your conscience. No matter what the consequences are, you go for that story and do it.

People shouldn’t be afraid. Look at what happened after June 12, it was the media that forced the government because the media was reporting it all. Some people lost their lives in the process. Some people were jailed.

Going into publishing
My magazine, Totally Whole, is a new magazine. The way the Nigerian publishing industry is, it is difficult for any new magazine that is not worth its salt to make it. Even if it is worth its salt, it’s shaken. TW came in September 2007.

I saw the need for more expansion. I’m sure Nigeria can take in 10, 20 lifestyle magazines. We are 150 million Nigerians. The point is, if it is difficult to start a new thing like a magazine that would change people’s lives, how many people would have the courage to start a magazine.

It is the vendor that tells you how much to sell your magazine. He tells you he can only take it at so and so price. However, the industry is growing. We should not loose faith. Publishing is good because there is nothing like the written word, nothing.

You walk away, come back, it’s waiting for you. You put on the television and watch a programme, you might forget or get carried away by the person reading the news. But on black and white, you read it, pass it on to the next person, it’s forever. Look at what William Shakespeare wrote centuries ago. We are still reading it till today. I think there’s power in the written word.