The Media Career Library Series offer a treasure trove of insights into media books and publications of journalists about Nigeria’s media landscape, experience, adventures, media practice and other topical books for intellectual engagement.
In this edition of the series, we looked into the symbolic work of a Nigerian media leader, Richard Ikiebe. The “Nigerian Media Leaders: Voices Beyond the Newsroom” Volumes 1 & 2. Published as a collaboration between the Nigerian Guild of Editors and the School of Media and Communication, Pan Atlantic University.
While Henry Townsend’s “Iwe Iroyin Fun Awon Egba” is well-known as a significant historical fact about Nigerian media, there are many more historical facts and noble practices of the Nigerian media worth exploring. Richard Ikiebe’s “Nigerian Media Leaders: Voices Beyond the Newsroom” fills this gap, providing unique insights and perspectives on the country’s media ecosystem from the independence era to the military regimes and back to democracy regimes.
The books feature interviews of several Nigerian media leaders like Sam Amuka, Patrick Dele Cole, Christopher Kolade, Vincent Maduka, Segun Osoba, Garba Shehu, Tony Momoh, Dupe Ajayi-Gbadebo, Betty Irabor, Lade Bonuola, Ray Ekpu, Kevin Ejiofor, Muhammed Haruna, Adamu Ciroma, Doyin Abiola, John Momoh Areoye Oyebola, Ted Iwere and Laban Namme. It also included John Momoh, Frank Aigbogun, Femi Kusa, Kabir Yusuf, Idowu Sobowale and Festus Adesanoye.
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This comprehensive series of interviews with pioneering and veteran media leaders, compiled into volumes, offer first-person accounts of individuals who shaped Nigeria’s media history. The book sheds light on the backgrounds, leadership styles, motivations, and contexts of key media organs and practices over the years as the Nigerian media and society evolved.
As Dr Patrick Dele Cole notes in the foreword, “Richard Ikiebe’s major work offers an invaluable service to Nigerian journalism and history. The approach is refreshing, providing insight into the actions, reasoning, styles, and principles of practice that define Nigeria’s media landscape.”
Through stories of the Daily Times’ rise and fall, journalists’ ventures into independent ownership, guerilla journalism under military rule, and the media’s role during the Biafran Civil War, Ikiebe’s book provides variegated accounts from media leaders across generations
It also documents the actions, reasoning, styles, and principles of practice of media organisations and their leaders, and provides insights into Nigeria’s democracy and media history
“Nigerian Media Leaders: Voices Beyond the Newsroom” is an essential resource for students, researchers, and media professionals seeking to understand the evolution of Nigeria’s media ecosystem.”
Although the book is promised to be a four-volume series book, only two volumes are currently available.
Richard Ikiebe who serves as the Chairman Board of Directors of BusinessDay Newspaper, Senior Fellow and Director of the Centre for Leadership in Journalism at the Pan Atlantic University(PAU) was in the late 1970s and 80s, a Reporter and Staff Writer of the Daily Times and Newswatch Magazine. He has also served in government as Special Adviser in the Presidency and Ministry of Information under different administrations. His significant contribution to the media sector made him decorated an Honorary Fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, NIPR earlier this year.
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