Azu Ishiekwene, the Editor-In-Chief, of The Interview magazine says the media is the way it is because professionals, have sacrificed journalism on the altar of business and poor ethics.
Ishiekwene said this at the just concluded annual Nigeria Editors Guild conference held from September 20 to 24, in Port Harcourt Rivers State.
He also called on editors to always raise their game, ‘as focus on journalism is not detrimental to business’.
He said, “You can learn all the acts of balancing professionalism with advocacy and business, if you are an editor, until and unless you get your journalism right and pursue it with single-minded focus, you will be wasting your time” he said.
“If our profession is in trouble today, it’s because we, the professionals, have sacrificed journalism on the altar of business and poor ethics. Section 22 of the 1999 constitution charges the press to hold government accountable to the people. The Nigerian press has a heritage of resisting oppressive governments and standing up to bullies, in whichever guise they come”.
“We must ask ourselves how far we have defended and maintained this heritage, as a public trust. However we may dislike the non-legacy press, thank God for their courage and aggressiveness. The profession would have been poorer without these”.
“I’m aware that many editors wear two caps – publisher and editor (or even editor-in-chief). I’m also aware that a number of editors are still employees, while not a few are kings and queens of the side hustle. In whichever camp we find ourselves, we often play the egg and chicken game, asking ourselves, why not good business first and, then, good journalism second? What’s the use of good journalism and bad business anyway?
“I’m absolutely convinced that robust and honest journalism is the one thing that we have been called to do; the thing that, once we get it right, other things will fall in place. It’s the thing without which any talk of advocacy or business will be a striving after wind”.
