COVID 19: Nigerian Media And National Crises -By Mike Omeri OFR, Ph.D

The mass media has a unique and important role to play in
times of national emergencies such as the fight against epidemics and novel
diseases such the covid-19, which comes with ravaging thirst and hunger for
human lives and damaging effects on the economies of nations. The role of the
media as used here is a function to an obligation as a social responsibility.
Social responsibility being an underlying foundation of the purpose and role of
media to society itself. 

Clearly, there is no doubt any more in policy and expert
circles, that the mass media can act in concert with other factors and
professionals to disrupt conservativism, implant dynamism, improve situations
and increase knowledge in society thereby accelerating rapid sectoral and
national development. It also is a medium for society to employ in the process
of sanitising itself in all mutual areas of endeavour.

Carr, Saunders and Wilson, in 1933, stressed the moral
obligation of the press to report the truth and inform accurately. This means
that the media should at all times seek new knowledge and report it for the
general use. The media should investigate trends and inform accurately, dissect
new concepts, diseases and interpret clearly, for the benefit of society
generally.

The media should set agenda and ensure that the focus of
society and its government remain towards attaining the ideal or an irreducible
limit for the well-being of the people. While attempting to correct a
situation, the media should not align with the trend of confusing policy and
political considerations but insist and ensure adherence to specific rather
than general strategy of development, particularly, in the provision of
infrastructure. For instance, the media should have upheld the long held
conclusion, that sharing money in market squares was irresponsible while
building health facilities for the same people, with same resources was cheaper
and a way of protecting the present and the future of citizens.

The media was guilty of not staying on message but joined in
the voyage of confusion that policy makers ravel on. Perhaps in the quest to
sell, the media became guilty of sticking to the trend lines of politics rather
than the headlines of reality. But the media prefers big corporations and
associates in government for the adverts and unmerited favours. They simply are
deviating from their primary function and role in society.

In his book, Mass Media and National Development, the
American Sociologist, Wilbur Schramm emphasised the irreplaceable role of the
media in national development. Therefore, by identifying and prioritising needs
of society, the media can set the agenda for government instead of positioning
itself as a medium or book of commentary after the fact.

The citizens need adequate media support in the efficient
and effective interpretation of the goals of nationhood and mandate of
government. Otherwise, rights will be made to look like privileges by those
holding the process of service in trust as we see today. The media with its
multiplying capacity can generate complacency and apathy in society and suffer
same fate from its publics.

In the prevailing Nigerian attempt at democracy, the media
can re-engineer positive social and self-supportive responses to engender
individual, group and community party participation and partnership for
development. Aristotle opines that the media can liberate the individual
towards thinking positively about ideas and initiatives.  While it is being achieved, the individual
nay, society, can initiate and or take action to redeem or build itself from
the clutches of retardants many of whom hold the key to policy and governance
especially in Africa. As social syringes, the media should be available to be
used to inject fresh ideas into the polity and where this is achieved, people
or citizens will think, aspire, gain and maximise their potentials by turning those
potentials to possibilities, opportunities and standards for policy makers,
holders and for the own benefits

Because the media is seen to possess an element of magic,
messages from it are most likely to be believed and retained as truthful and
may become a part of ones’ useable resources many years after they were first
heard or read in the mass media. Experiences illustrate how easy it has become
the audience to voluntarily or impulsively learn something new from it or even,
to re- inforce a perception.

This, it does by altering perception of situations
altogether, as change agents. This alteration could be positive or negative.
Take a trip down town today. It is common to hear that the media only
represents only the views and dictates of the political class, even then, the
ruling class at all times. This is creating a situation of unbelievability of
medium and media generally, leading to reliance on substituted media, media
without editors and foreign sources even for local, village or community news.

A nation’s media is its conscience and this must not be
compromised for any lucre or pot of porridge. Media owners must resist the
temptation of jumping into the ring with their own opinions and pushing such
down the throats of readers as commanding views. What happens is that such
media owners lose their voices when failure looms or, in the alternative, keep
repeating worn out tales hoping that their monopoly of the media space will
eventually confirm their views. In Nigeria, this has been the case because of
apparent failures in governance and many areas of service delivery. Many media
owners have not been able to reverse themselves and have lost their status
among readers who tended to believe them in the past. This is avoidable in
order to retain the claim to being the fourth arm of government in any
democracy.

In this season of contemptuous media of anything goes, the
need to return to the values of the profession is more apparent. Similarly, the
need for the reading public to appreciate any media that stuck to those
pristine values of the profession is gracious to the cause of nation building.
Indeed, quite a few have stood out with the flag of journalism for development
in Nigeria. Others pretend that all is well. But the media should engage in inward
self- regulation, and not be ashamed or discouraged from the basic principles
of journalism 101. If you don’t know this, then you are one of those dragging
the wheels of journalism as partners for development back. Read it, know it and
reflect it in your views and editorial policy.

With the on -going celebration of the ravages of Covid-19,
the entire media should focus on promoting both short and long term solutions.
It should sensitize the public and saturate it with communicative messaging, by
sieving the fake and the real and by staying on the message. It is a desperate
world in search of solution and nothing less. Thereafter, it should set
sectoral agenda and refuse to deviate no matter the temptation, so that the
nation may invest in research and science, the provision of facilities and all.
Otherwise, our traditional friends will heal themselves first before looking
back or any other way at all. Then, it may be too late. We have had our own
“resident” Lassa Fever, Ebola came visiting and now Corona with its crown. The
question therefore is: What next after COVID-19.

Mike Omeri OFR, Ph.D

Timbuktoo Media Solutions,

Abuja