From Priscilla Ediare, Ado Ekiti
Professor Omotoye Olorode, member, Secretariat Collective, The People’s Alternative Political Movement (TPAPM), has charged the Nigerian media to always do their jobs without fear or favour and to build trust in the industry.
He stated this during the 2022 Annual Lecture and Award Presentation held by Federated Chapel, Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Ekiti State Council, last Thursday, on the theme “Journalism, Security, Party Politics and Election Coverage: The Way forward”.
Speaking on Security, Olorode called on Journalists, for handling crisis in isolation through impure and disjointed channels by being commercial-oriented in their reportage of news that are attributed to security of the nation.
He stressed that when the news are being disseminated to the public, the audience may have shortcomings in terms of the news content about security, seconding the unconscious threat of the design in their quest to make sales.
He equally frowned at the excess attention by the Press, paid to the vie of authority and power among the ruling class, adding that it makes the masses to vote for ‘their so-called desired Candidates’ who are in disguise, with the same ruling class commitments.
“What Journalists, their organizations and other categories of intellectuals have to do, is to avail the masses of the victims of the ruling class economic and social order, the totality of their talents and their unalloyed commitment.”
From the foregoing, it should be obvious that generally speaking, journalists and the press in general, had been selective in their reportage regarding security. They have also, on the whole, dealt with elements of the security crisis in isolated and generally disjointed, and non-holistic, ways.
These shortcomings, while they may not have arisen from design, create disabilities for the public—the consumers of the products of the media and the practitioners—the journalists! Some of these shortcomings we must trace to commercialism and Intellectual unpreparedness.
The oppressed (masses) are persuaded, via periodic elections that they are choosing those who govern when, in fact, they keep electing from the same class; with the same class commitments”
The Chairman, NUJ, Ekiti State Council, Comrade Rotimi Ojomoyela, ably represented by the Secretary of the Council, Comrade Kayode Babatuyi, commended the Council for the record of their enviable successes, training of the Scribes, to ensure that professionalism is put in place in order to eradicate quackery in the State.
“Our union has continued to record tremendous successes beyond our expectations, particularly in the areas of infrastructure, training of journalists and ensuring a respectable profession by putting machinery in place to checkmate impostors or quacks that have infiltrated the profession with impunity”.
Chairman, Federated Chapel, Comrade Ayodele Abere, also admitted most things not being in orderliness, which prompted the Annual Lecture, in their quest to seek advice and solutions from the resourceful sources invited for the Lecture.
However, the Chapel granted an Award of Excellence to Alhaja Bose Adedibu, Meritorious Award to Elizade University, Ondo State and Award of the Best Media to Ajibola Aminat (Amiloaded) on the grounds of ‘Women participation in Politic, Southwest Nigeria’, ‘Teaching morals on academics’ and ‘Entrepreneurial personality’.