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THE MEDIA SHOULD STOP CREATING A WRONG ATMOSPHERE 

By: Johnson Gabriel

 Journalists cannot operate in a vacuum, doing what they think is right without pressures being put on them.

The present journalism major focus is on reporting Negative information that could bring a government to lose its focus amongst various issues. 

The media, dogmatically overdoses the public with a certain information they see will be a threat to a government until they are been paid off or told to trash down, neglecting varieties of positive information that would do the country good. 

In other developed countries, the rich people have something the produce to help their country grow, they have something to offer and people will relate and remember them for but in Nigeria, reverse is the case, the richest people are politicians even a lecturer will retire to become a politician for its a source of wealth and the easiest way to accumulating wealth but the media will keep quiet and neglect investigations due to them being paid off.

 During the reign of GEJ (Ebelle Jonathan) the report of boko-haram spated the atmosphere as if it could flush out Nigeria. But let's asses, how many reports we get on bombing activities today? they are not as much as those reported during GEJ's tenure, but are there no still Bombings all around? But these people kept mute! Let's see the information on lassa fever, is it all rats that carries the virus? If it should be all rats, then almost every Nigerian should be a lassa patient...lol!

 It's another period where the media has stumbled upon something that would serve as threat to the present government, whereby they strongly perpetuate on reporting the value of Naira when compared to Dollars. There are many positive stories out there that the media is circumventing. There are different things going on in politics that the media should dig but they wont. There are many positive articles the media can produce out of this situation like encouraging local products rather than making it a situation to mimic or create a confusion for the government.

 The media is saying people are loosing their jobs the economy is bad. Please let them tell us how many people are loosing their jobs and tell us what is bad about the economy.

 Many people are amassing wealth illegally out there, the media will keep quiet concentrating to blow off a peaceful atmosphere.

Although, Journalists face pressure from a variety of sources, all trying to make the journalist behave in a way which is not the way the journalist would choose.

 Your employer pays your salary. In return, they expect to say how you will do your job. This can lead to ethical problems for journalists.

If you work for a government-owne

d news organisation, then your government will be your employer. This could make it very difficult for you to report critically on things which the government is doing.

Ministers will often put pressure on public service journalists to report things which are favourable to the government (even when they are not newsworthy) and not to report things which are unfavourable to the government. They can enforce public service discipline, to make journalists do as the government wants. This is especially difficult to resist in small developing countries, where there may be little or no alternative employment.

It is not only government-owne

d media where such pressure exists, though.

Commercial media are paid for by a mixture of advertising and sales. To increase sales, newspapers, radio and television stations sometimes sponsor sporting or cultural events, and then publicise them. Your boss may demand more coverage for the event than it is worth, in order to promote the event as much as possible. You will need to persuade them of the danger of this - that other events will have to be neglected to give extra coverage to your sponsored event, and that this will risk losing readers or listeners.

It is important that you try to resist all these forms of pressure, as far as possible.

Of course, you will sometimes fail. This is an imperfect world, and journalists are also imperfect. Nevertheless, you should always try to resist the kinds of pressure 

Ideally, a journalist should dismiss such threats, and judge each story only on its news merits. However, this is easier in a large community with a diverse and developed economy than it is in a small country with a developing economy.