By S. A. Aina
It isn’t just called the fourth estate of the realm for no reason; its importance cannot be over-emphasized in the overall scheme of things in any society. Journalism is the work of collecting and writing news stories for newspapers, magazines, radio or television.
It’s a profession of news-writing for radio, television and newspaper. Their collective is known as the media. A person whose job is to collect and write news stories for newspapers, magazines, radio or television is called a journalist. As a professional, a journalist must have done due diligence before putting out any news stories for public consumption, for any fake news could have a devastating effect in the long run.
The media is the reliable source of information; most people don’t believe things unless they’ve been broadcast on radio or television or carried in the newspapers. The media informs, educate, edifies, and entertains the people, the community, the country and the whole world about the happenings in their immediate and remote environments. It serves as a watchdog, and can set agenda for the government for good governance; it should be neutral and unbiased in its reportage.
A journalist reports events or things as they are/were without any form of sensationalism. It’s said that information is power, but it’s just any information, rather the right information. Anyone who’s not rightly informed is bound to be deformed one way or the other. So, the media is the powerhouse of the right, accurate, unadulterated, and balanced information, and be free to do its job conscientiously without fear or favour.
Journalism is one of the riskiest professions the world over, for many a journalist has lost their lives while trying to get the right information across to the public. The gruesome assassination of the Nigerian journalist, Dele Giwa, in 1986 and that of the Saudi journalist Jamal Ahmed Khashoggi in 2018 and a host of others too numerous to mention.
The mainstream media is classified into two: the electronic media and the print media as suggested in the definition given earlier. However, journalism has evolved over the years, especially with the emergence of the the new media which is a form of media that uses “computational and rely on computer [and smart phones] for distribution.”
This cybermedia gathered momentum in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and it includes Wikipedia, online encyclopedia, together with “Internet accessible digital text images and videos with link, creative participation of contributors, interactive feedback of users and formation of a participant community of editors for the benefit of non-community readers.” The social media like Twitter, Facebook Instagram app that have also involves active participation of users.
The proliferation of these social networking services has led many to jump on the bandwagon of citizen journalism where individuals unilaterally post and share information on their social media outlets, at times without a thorough investigation to ascertain the veracity of the content.
Part 2! Wait for it…….
