THE IMPACT OF ETHICS ON THE CONTENTS OF NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINE

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ABSTRACT

 

The study was basically developed to examine the impact of ethics on the contents of newspapers and magazine with a case study of the Tell Magazine. The objective was to discover whether Tell magazine uphold ethical standards like fairness, accuracy, balance, rejection of brown envelope, non disclosure of source of vital information and many others in its daily assignment or not. Ethical standard in journalism was developed to ensure good conduct and accord respect for journalism and practitioners. Findings shows that the Tell Magazine do uphold ethical standard in its day to day activities with 67% of the respondents attested to this fact. The research was divided into five chapters, Chapter one of the study based on the background of the study, problem statement, research questions, significance of the study, scope of the study, and definition of the terms. Chapter two, of the study contains the review of literature with references to some scholarly written work on the subject matter. Survey method was adopted and questionnaires were administered. Simple random sampling technique was also adopted to select respondents. Data analysis and interpretations of findings done with frequency and percentage method of data analysis was used. It is recommended that Media houses should increase the salary of their workers and paid them on time while regular allowance should be made available for them. Trainings and workshops are to be organized regularly to retrain and re-orientate their workers on the to uphold ethical standard.

 

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1   BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Journalism practice wields such enormous powers and calls for the highest standards of ethics and commitment to truth in Nigeria and the world as large. Ethics and truth in journalism have assumed global concern as scholars recognize that their basic constituents of objectivity, accuracy, fairness and balance have merely assumed mythical qualities as journalists battle to assign credibility to their news stories.

Tuchman (1978: 2) describes objectivity as ‘facility’ (a mechanism which allows the journalists to hide even from themselves the ‘constructed’ and ‘partial’ nature of their stories). This view seems to have garnered force as increasingly, scholars suggest that news even when professionally ‘selected’ is guided more by organizational needs than by professionalism.

The journalist thus becomes ‘a walking paradox’ (Nordenstreng 1995) as one cannot fail to see that journalism is so full of contradictions that “we have to question even the most fundamental dogma of the profession – truth seeking – because the way it has been conceived and practiced in journalism serves as a deceptive filtering device preventing as much as helping the truth being discovered” (Nordenstreng 1995:117). News commercialization practise in Nigeria media industries adds to this contradiction and deception, creating a continuous dilemma for ethics and objectivity in journalism practice in Nigeria.

In the same manner, in our noble profession of journalism, when a journalist gets hooked on the ‘brown envelope’ malaise, or a media house engages in ‘cheque book journalism,’ professionalism and ethics get crucified.

While the definitions are wide, within the media, they have precise applications as defined by the Nigerian Union of Journalists’ Code of Ethics Clause 4 of the Code says: “A journalist shall not accept bribes nor shall he/she allow other inducements to influence the performance of his/her professional duties.”

The Nigerian Guild of Editors concurs in Clause 7 of its Code of Ethics for Nigerian Journalists where it says emphatically that, “A journalist should neither solicit nor accept bribe, gratification or patronage to suppress or publish information.” It further states that “To determine payment for publication of news is inimical to the notion of news as fair, accurate, unbiased and factual report of an event.

Terje S. Skjerdal of the Gimlekollen School of Journalism and Communication, Norway. In a research article titled, Research on Brown Envelope Journalism in the African Media, (African Communication Research Vol. 3, 2010) states: “The term ‘brown envelope journalism’ is applied to denote journalistic activity which involves transfer of various types of rewards from sources to the reporter” (p. 369).

He further identifies the “three characteristics” that are commonly involved in the disturbing phenomenon. One, it usually occurs at a very personal level; two, it involves a reasonable degree of confidentiality to succeed. That is, it is not usually done in the open.

And three, it is an informal contract. This presupposes that there is a willing source who is ready to give ‘something’ to influence the processing of the information gathered by the reporter; and a reporter, willing or reluctant to take but who collects all the same for his/her personal use and the ‘deal’ is wrapped up in utmost confidentiality (pp. 369-370)

1.2   STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Critics have identified distortion of news, imbalance report and the growing tendency for the publics not to believe the media news (lack of objectivity) as major problems inherent in most of the media houses in Nigeria.

Objectivity as an ethical standard is one of the most persuasive in all of journalism. Objectivity, fairness, accuracy and balance in news gathering and presentation is the reporters aim and objective. The research is focusing on the impact of ethics on the contents of Nigeria magazines with a reference to the News Magazine.

1.3   OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

  • To examine how journalists maintain the ethics of journalism in their daily activities.
  • To study the benefits of ethics of journalism on the professionalism.
  • To analysis the problem facing Tell Magazine in upholding the ethics of their work.
  • To know how journalists are coping with both ethics of journalism and constitution.
  • To know how ethics of journalism promote objectivity and accuracy.
  • To study the future of print media on ethics of journalism.
  • To examine how ethics protect journalists against disclosure of source of information.
  • To study how new freedom of information law in Nigeria encourage journalists to look for fact.

1.4   RESEARCH QUESTIONS

  • To what extent do journalists maintain the ethics of the profession in their daily activities?
  • What are the challenges facing ethics of journalism in Nigeria?
  • Does the ethics of journalism prevent journalists from taken brown envelope?
  • To what extent do journalists uphold fairness, accuracy and balance in their report?
  • Does the ethics of journalism motivate press to work hard?
  • Does journalists able to balance ethics of journalism with constitution?
  • How does an ethic protect journalists against disclosure of source of information?
  • Does new freedom of information law in Nigeria encourage journalists to look for fact?

1.5   SCOPE OF THE STUDY

Although, the primary aim and objective of this project is to examine the impact of the ethics of journalism on media practitioners.  This cannot be effectively talked without considering the demographic factor of the Tell Magazine since the work cannot be carried out in all the media outfits across the country, and as a result of this the scope of this work shall be narrowed to the Tell Magazine in Lagos.

1.6   SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

MEDIA PRACTITIONERS: The study will benefit the media practitioners and mass communication students on the Impact of ethics on media and professionalism.

JOURNALISTS: The study will assist journalists to know its role in enhancing the success of failure of print industries.

GOVERNMENT: The study will as well benefit the government to see how ethics of journalism affect the society by passing more law that will provide freedom for media.

MEDIA OWNERS: Other beneficial of the study are the media owners, who will know how their action and reaction is crippling the success and public credibility of the media outfit.

1.7   LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

TIME: Time constraint has posed a lot of limitations to this work as it took me a lot of time to gather enough literature materials while it was stressful to travel to my case study area i.e News Magazine as they asked to come repeatedly before I could get background history of the News Magazine.

INADEQUATE FINANCE: inadequate finance for this project is another hindrance, there was no enough money to travel to News Magazine several time as the management demanded a lot of money was spent in borrowing for the materials online.

1.8   DEFINITION OF THE TERMS

PRESS: This is a collective name for mass media such as the News Magazine.

ETHICS: It is the principle or code of conduct that governed a particular association or group, especially as it governed the practice of Journalism.

BROWN ENVELOPE: It is a term in the media sphere which means bribe given to journalists?

JOURNALISM; This is a profession of or act or writing, editing and dissemination of information to the wider audience such as News Magazine.

CONTENT OF MAGAZINE: These entails all the write up, advertisement, articles, features and others that contain inside magazine.

CREDIBILITY: Credibility is the believe of trust which audience have on the contents of the broadcast media.

GATEKEEPING: Any person or formerly organized group directly involve in relaying or disseminating information from one individual to another mass medium. Gatekeepers can add or reduce the content of the message.

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