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Lekan Sote
Section 22 of Nigeria’s Constitution provides that “The press, radio, television and other agencies of the mass media shall, at all times, be free to uphold the Fundamental Objectives contained in (Chapter II of Nigeria’s Constitution) and uphold the responsibility and accountability of the Government to the people.”
This suggests that the Constitution recognises the media as an agency of government in Nigeria. Yet the media is not being financed or supported from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of Nigeria like the Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the executive, legislative and judiciary branches of the Nigerian government that are created and recognised by the Constitution.
To guarantee the independence of the legislature and the judiciary, their fundings have been designated as direct charges to the Consolidated Revenue Fund but no financial provisions have been made for the media by the Constitution.
There is a need for a direct charge to the Federation Account to be made available, via grants or patronage, not investments, to make funding available for the operations of the media, like other agencies of government.
It is curious that the Constitution, whose Section 39 recognises freedom of speech and advocates the formation of the media as an instrument of democracy, is silent on how to financially provide for the media to carry out its onerous, expensive and dangerous duties.
To appreciate the importance of the media in a democracy, you may have to consider the following words of Thomas Jefferson, statesman, lawyer, diplomat and third President of America:
“I think if I had to choose between government without newspapers and newspapers without government, I think I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” From a president that was viciously vilified by the media, this speaks a lot about the importance of the media in a modern democracy.
At this stage, it is apt to discuss the major trends of ownership and operational structure of the media described by media scholars. The four major theories, that should have been described as trends or peculiarities are libertarian, authoritarian, communist and social responsibility.
The media scholars who compiled these trends suggest that “the press always takes on the form and colouration of the social and political structures within which it operates.” The media “reflects the system of social control.”
The libertarian, the first mode of media practice to be recognised, which applies more to the print media, assumes that there is a marketplace of ideas and the media, and the citizens, should feel free to engage as they would. Section 39 of Nigeria’s Constitution supports free speech.
Because the business model is capitalist, it operates with the principle of market forces, predicated on the Darwinian template of survival of the fittest. Profit is the king and the media publishes what is profitable, as it also checks the government.
The libertarian template is typified by the penny newspaper of America’s frontier days when every kind of news was fair game and no holds were barred. The National Enquirer tabloid, America’s notorious scandal rag-sheet and Nigeria’s defunct soft-sell, Lagos Weekend newspaper, are examples of the libertarian type of media.
The authoritarian model is validated by English writer, Dr Samuel Johnson, who says, “Every society has a right to preserve public peace and order, and therefore has a given right to prohibit the propagation of opinions which have a dangerous tendency.”
The recognition of the truth is entrusted to only a small number of sages, sometimes clerics with sacred religious tablets. Though the government may not own or control the media, the media is at least expected to maintain neutrality over public issues.
In justifying an opinion that may rile protagonists of the libertarian model, Dr Johnson argues that though restraining opinion, in one way or the other, may be regarded as morally wrong, it is politically correct.
The Soviet-Communist model, a spinoff from the radical economic theory of Karl Marx, insists that the ownership and operational structure of the media should be in the custody of the state that looks after the interests of the citizens, “the lumpenproletariat.”
Like the authoritarian model, the Soviet-Communist model expects the media to promote the political establishment, which it describes as the dictatorship of the proletariats over other socioeconomic classes in the political realm.
But the media is expected to avoid the promotion of social conflicts and de-emphasise the profit motive from the calculations of the media enterprises, because the media, as a service arm of government, depends entirely on the government.
The Social Responsibility model is of the view that media ownership (by individuals or corporate organisations) is a public trust or stewardship and not just an unlimited, unrestrained, private franchise. It operates with the responsibility that its power must be used with great caution and respect for others.
Social Responsibility raises conflicts in the place of discussion even as the media is forbidden to invade the privacy rights of the people or disrupt social structures or interests. For the media, in the Social Responsibility model, public opinion is the only constraint.
The reservation of the Social Responsibility model may have prompted drafters of Nigeria’s Constitution to add Section 39(3b) which says, “Nothing (in the Constitution) shall invalidate any law that is reasonably justifiable in a democratic society.”
Section 39(2), which probably justifies the libertarian media, says, “Without prejudice… every person (or every Nigerian citizen) shall be entitled to own, establish and operate any medium for the dissemination of information, ideas and opinions.”
Of course, these are derived from Section 39(1) which provides: “Every person shall be entitled to freedom of expression, including freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart ideas and information without interference.”
All these are just a way to say that practically every nation has a media model, or structure, that emanates from its culture, politics and economics.
But the current economic or business model of Nigeria, a mix of private and public media enterprises, must be tweaked so that a more economically viable Nigerian media will be able to deliver on Section 22.
A financially viable media industry will attract and adequately remunerate quality and committed talents; finance and carry out investigative journalism; discourage the “brown envelope” syndrome that has practically turned news into a commodity bought by the highest bidders among politicians and corporate executives who want to keep their sordid stories away from media scrutiny and instead push their skewed narratives.
A clear path to the sustainability of the Nigerian media must be found, even if the Nigerian media is tending toward the Social Responsibility model that is profit-driven but also sensitive to the demands of public interest, public safety, public morality and decency.
If you ask: what should be the criteria which determine the media that gets a grant? Look no further than the provision in Nigeria’s Company and Allied Matters Act, which says that a standard Nigerian company is that with at least 50 employees.
Of course, there is the danger of “charlatans,” who may come up with spurious claims of being media houses, whereas they are not. This should not deter a financial plan to empower “bonafide” media houses to significantly perform their constitutional responsibility to Nigerians.
But as the media receive the grants, their independence must not be compromised.
