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Reporters as Ethnic Messengers
by Selma Uduak ¹

I constantly examine the dilemma I face in this messy set up of contemporary Nigerian reporting. As a person of Southeastern ethnicity who works in a medium owned by a Northerner, my friends truly believe that it is my "responsibility" to downplay any story perceived as detrimental to the broad interest of my ethnic group in the newspaper. As they often joylessly put it: "Facilitate. You have to facilitate favorable coverage for us." The truth, however, is that I am not sure I have much in common with these people - except my ethnicity, but is that enough?

There is so much to worry about these days with the psychology of our media. It starts with the basic issue of classification. In categorizing media organizations in Nigeria, regular readers take at least two factors into consideration: the region of the country in which the headquarters of the medium is situated and/or the ethnic origin of the publisher or proprietor of the medium. Labels such as the Lagos-Ibadan Press (a blanket term for all media houses based in the Southern part of the country, particularly the Southwest), and the Northern media (for media houses in the Northern part of Nigeria) play to this typography. Similarly when Nigerian readers talk glibly of Yoruba press, Igbo press and Hausa press, they refer to the ethnic origins of the proprietors suggesting that the press is a parrot of its master's voice. The grand irony is that today proprietors from minority ethnic groups own the most influential newspapers in the country.

As far as Nigerian readers and newspaper analysts are concerned, media organizations in the country slant their coverage along these divisions. For instance, newspaper readers who want to get balanced information often buy several papers. For those who can afford it, doing this enables readers to view all these perspectives. Readers and analysts are not the only ones caught in this trap. The cultivation of parochialism as an editorial culture is so entrenched that its implications for the news process are profound. From the beginning, the paper I work for in Northern Nigeria was unambiguous with its intentions. It did not camouflage the objectives and the editorial policy of the paper-to give more coverage to events that concern Nigerians of Northern origin.

This mission is predicated on several assumptions. One assumption is that media houses in Nigeria, most of which are based in the so-called Lagos-Ibadan Axis, do not cover the North adequately. Another assumption, much more covert than the first, is that the political interest of the North, however defined, can best be protected, projected and promoted by a medium based in the North and owned by northerners. A practical manifestation of this vis-a-vis the news process can be gleaned from the following example: Politicians from Northern Nigeria played a significant role in convincing Mr. Olusegun Obasanjo, a Southwesterner, to contest the presidential elections believing that when elected, he would be more amenable to their control. To this aim, Northern newspapers gave wider coverage to his presidential campaign through news reports, features and even editorials.

However, when Obasanjo came to power, the papers carried out actions that Northern politicians as well as most Northerners considered inimical to their interest and those of their region. Since then, most Northern media have been at the forefront of exposing the perceived ills and weaknesses of the Obasanjo government. Part of this strategy is to give more space to the upsurge of inter-ethnic conflicts and to demands by different ethnic groups to opt out of the Nigerian federation. Although most of these mediums were not known to give any substantive coverage to events in the Southeastern part of the country, the recent activity of a political group calling for Southeastern secession from Nigeria captured the interest of most Northern publishers. In pursuit of what is clearly an agenda structured to suggest that the Obasanjo regime is characterized by misrule, extensive coverage has been given to this story on the activity of the group called the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB).

This example shows the problem of how media ownership not only interferes with the news process but how it can complicate the management of diversity. Yet this is not to suggest that there are no other problematic issues. One that readily comes to mind is the organization of correspondents around different ethnic backgrounds such as Igbo journalists, Northern journalists, Yoruba journalists, Southern minority journalists, etc. In Abuja - the seat of the Nigerian presidency, parliament and the Supreme Court, and the crucible of policy formation in the country - reporters filter their dispatches through ethno-nation prisms, even though they don't know it. Readers lose in this arrangement. Apart from protecting the micro-interest of members of these associations, reporters also further the interest of their respective larger ethnic groups in the news process. Media organizations have a long way to go in managing diversity in the news.

1. Selma Uduak is a Nigerian freelance journalist.