Today’s Media and the Conductors of Misinformation -By Kareem Itunu Azeez

It is a plain truth that two people might read the same story but interprets it differently, but it is now a tragic fact that most media in Nigeria enjoys the negative interpretation of every unverified story it floated. Why? Because, they are in the rat race of breaking the news.

In 2018 there was a movie in pune, and mumbai India, titled Sanju, it was about a prisoner, and a former drug addict painted for all the wrong reasons of which better part of his life was being spent in the prison. These were though as a result of the fake narrations of the fourth estate of the realm.

In Nigeria, as much as everywhere else in the world, bad news sells more than congratulatory ones, little wonder we pay to air our joyful stories, but they run to us in wreckage of havoc, to sell for free our error, this further only make every average person of my clan, a frustrated moving bags. A time bomb waiting to explode even the Nigerian police had admitted it to be.

Its being few weeks since the senate has being deliberating on the social media regulations, this is as a result of the excessive misinformation circulating the media space, but I do have a belief if it’s that possible to ban even the mass media in any way possible, many administrations would jump to that, because as well as the bad side seems even more than the good side nowadays, the only connection the people have with the government today is the media.  The media is no longer the mediator between the masses and the government, it is now the destruction conductor with truck load of disinformation.

For example prior to the second term of the Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, there were various versions that he was long dead, and the person at the villa is Sudanese, in fact, some went as far to tell he was cloned, however the surprising factor for me is the attention it received from various media houses, without any proper fact-findings, some even granted pages for opinions on the same issue, one popular story is the one published by the Punch newspaper, titled, BUHARI: The real, the fake and the dead, this was published in 2018, and with the level of coverage as such the Punch, we know how far this would have gotten.

Another one which seems even more popular was a recent statement credited to Alhaji Gidado Siddiki, the leader of the Miyetti Allah Group, with a bold headline in one of the popular media, “south-east will boil any moment from now because of their stubbornness” where he was alleged to have said that, “since they (the south easterners) are claiming to be stubborn, and had refused to give them their lands in peace, it will be taken by force and entire south-east will be raided and taken over by the herdsmen (Siddiki, 2019).

Expectedly, the news turned out to be what Claire Wardle described as “False Connection” (when headlines or captions do not support the content).

Similarly, a certain story about the Fulani disguising to attack people in some parts of Osun State is still trending on various WhatsApp platforms sometimes ago, even though recently the help of fact checking site has begun to emerge, such as Dubawa, Africa check and recently the Peoples check.

According to Uwaebuka Wisdom MADU, in his work, “The Menace of Fake News in Nigeria: Implications for National Security” he had described fake news thus: “Fake news is a fabricated information that mimics media content deliberately created and circulated with the intent to deceive. It is a medium through which social vices like hate speech is circulated to fuel ethno-religious crises, political tension, tribal sentiment, character assassination and corporate deformation. The primary aim of promoters and mongers of fake news is to instigate acts capable of causing disunity among people. It was hate speech and fake news that contributed largely to the genocide that ravaged Rwanda in 1994”.

This is the reason why I maintain still that practitioners of this media, are the troubles we have, they are contributing a 50% to the negativity we have, instead of constructively even in their neutrality, they are primarily concerned with how many people would get their paper not necessarily how many people would be in danger after buying such papers.

There are journalists such as Jimi Disu, late Dele Giwa, Olabisi Ajala, Chief Anthony Enahoro, Dapo Olorunyomi, Laolu Akande, Steve Bucknor, Kadaria, Akintunde Akanni, to mention  but a few, journalism was much of promoting the goodwill of the people, it was accountable for its floating and messages to cross countries, the people were fed truthfully not misguided, however the invention of total freedom in the media space and lack of media education. This has made it easy for me to get into the social media account then post for over billions of people to read, and also feed those who are less privilege to understand the realm of fact-checking.

Some two months ago, MAIN and UNESCO had organized a program for the awareness of fake news, its spread, and how to tackle such tragedies, I was part of this training, and I would implore more of such, to really go round especially bloggers and owners of unverified sites, the truth is, the internet never forgets, and the damage may have being done before corrections would be made.

Like the CoronaVirus the next pandemic Nigeria is battling is the spread of fake news, curtailing it is not as easy as putting words to paper, but a vigorous activity, because from the market women down to the gainsayers, fake news traveled even faster than the speed of light, what then can we do to curb this menace?

I will take the stance of Uwaebuka Wisdom MADU (CLN), Modupe Aduke ABOYADE (PhD) and Stephen Adekunle AJAYI (CLN) in their work, “The Menace of Fake News in Nigeria: Implications for National Security” that, relevant stakeholders should be supported in developing participatory and transparent initiatives for creating a better understanding of the impact of disinformation and propaganda on democracy, freedom of expression, journalism and civic space, as well as appropriate responses to these phenomena.

However, the Government also must as well find a way to support its core traditional media for acceptability over social media. Nigeria in particular must ensure that its national newspapers and television stations are sustainable to practice quality journalism that will be acceptable and preferable to the people.

The need to rebuild trust in the traditional media is born out of the fact that political encroachment is having very negative impacts on most media houses in Nigeria, making most Nigerians to believe that every piece of news is either out rightly fake or fake with a touch of real.

Furthermore, the International Specialized Mandate on Freedom of Expression and/or Media (2017) recommends that measures should be taken to promote media and digital literacy as part of regular school curriculum and by engaging with civil society and other stakeholders to raise awareness about the issue of fake news. If we allow such initiatives to grow, we might be doing ourselves a great deal of help.

God bless Nigeria.

Kareem Itunu Azeez,  is a Political Scientist, and Educationist from the Lagos State University

Ikareemazeez@yahoo.com