Ship of journalism sinking fast-Senate president

Senate President Ahmad Lawan says unprofessional conducts are sinking the ship of the media profession.

Speaking in Lokoja, Kogi State, at the 2020 Media Retreat organised by the Senate Press Corps, he urged media practitioners in Nigeria to be wary of the perceived sinking ship of their profession.

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Lawan, represented by the chairman of the Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Senator Ajibola Basiru, said: “The ship of journalism is sinking and it is sinking very fast and something drastic has to be done before it totally capsizes”.

He said the ship of journalism needed to be re-navigated properly along the routes of professionalism and objectivity to  prevent it from capsizing.

Sensationalism, he said, should not be equated with serving as a watchdog since it not only erodes the credibility of the media and creates doubts about the quest of the media for accountability and responsibility of the government.

“It is therefore imperative for the press to rededicate itself to proper investigative journalism with necessary thoroughness that focused of substance of findings in relation to inefficiency, waste, corruption, mismanagement and/ or misappropriation being exposed.

“Corruption and bad leadership in and among the Nigerian press have escalated professional compromise which are basically unethical and subjective journalism.”

He said if the media had performed its role as enshrined in Section 22 of the Constitution, Nigeria would have surmounted the menace of institutionalized corruption to a very reasonable extent.