Senate President, Dr Ahmad Lawan, on Monday lamented the state of Nigerian journalism, saying that unprofessional conducts are gradually sinking the ship of the media profession.
Dr Lawan said in Lokoja, Kogi State, at the 2020 Media Retreat organised by the Senate Press Corps that media practitioners in Nigeria must be wary of the perceived sinking ship of their profession.
Lawan, represented by the chairman of the Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Senator Ajibola Basiru, said that “the ship of journalism is sinking and it is sinking very fast and something drastic has to be done before it totally capsizes.” He said the ship of journalism needed to be re-navigated properly along the routes of professionalism and objectivity to prevent it from capsizing.
Sensationalism, he said, should not be equated with serving as a watchdog since it not only erodes the credibility of the media and creates doubts about the quest of the media for accountability and responsibility of the government.
Lawan stated: “It is therefore imperative for the press to rededicate itself to proper investigative journalism with necessary thoroughness that focused of substance of findings in relation to inefficiency, waste, corruption, mismanagement and/ or misappropriation being exposed.
“Corruption and bad leadership in and among the Nigerian press have escalated professional compromise which are basically unethical and subjective journalism.”
The Senate President noted that if the media had performed its role as enshrined in Section 22 of the Constitution, Nigeria would have surmounted the menace of institutionalized corruption to a very reasonable extent.