Issues
News Reporting In Covid-19 Era
The request to give a talk on Reporting in Covid-19 Era serves as a form of uniting with my friends and colleagues after a long absence from the scene, to reminisce about newsroom experience and fun. Newsroom is a mad place that used to be stuffy with the acrid stench of tobacco, with no permanent seat for reporters. Sit wherever there is space and knock out your story.
Personally, I love being called a Reporter than an Editor. It is more dignifying to be addressed as Reporter because it is the foundation of journalism. Reporting is a craft; it is an art not easily acquired by many journalists. It is easier to write essays than reporting, where one uses the: who, when, where, what, and how to form an inverted pyramid.
There are other types of reporting that are different from newspapering. Formal and informal reports which are familiar with bureaucratic red tapism. Formal reports are schematic in layout: terms of reference, findings, conclusion, and recommendation.
Formal report takes the form of memo. News reporting is segmented, in other words, there are beats such as crime, court, assembly, sports, entertainment, airport, labour, seaport, and such like. They are specialized. These beats have their own languages, which the reporter is expected to master and speak effectively. Specialization leads to efficiency and greater output, but it also leads to boredom. Therefore, a good reporter is one who is versatile. He is a factotum because he can function in any beat. As a result, the chances of being bored in repeating one particular thing is minimal. There will be job enlargement and enrichment.
After having a cursory glance at reporting, let me also look at Covid-19. It is a family of viruses that can cause respiratory illness in human. On December 31, 2019, World Health Organization (WHO) was informed of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause in Wuhan City, China. A novel Coronavirus was identified as the cause by Chinese authorities on January 7, 2020 and was temporarily named “2019-ncov”.
We are all living witnesses to the devastating effects of the pandemic. It swept like wild -fire across the globe, and decimated the population. Economic activities were paralyzed. No sector was spared. Movements were halted, and people were forced into self-imprisonment. It was a period of improvised fasting without sufficient prayers due to scarcity of food. Covid-19 was a plague that defiled all known orthodox medications.
In order to check further ravages of the pandemic, certain measures were put in place such as social distancing, wearing of face mask, washing of hands regularly with soap, application of sanitizer, maintaining good hygiene, subjecting people to tests, isolating those who tested positive in camps, and quarantining travellers from other countries for a number of days.
There was hue and cry about the claim of China that the cause of the menacing pneumonia was not known. Donald Trump believed that it was a mischievous act for economic reason. The rivalry between U.S and China to dominate the economy of the world is awful. Fingers are pointing at Bill Gates for having conspirational relationship with China to cause the disaster so that he could come up with his antivirus to enrich himself. When eventually China manufactured drugs to combat the dreaded Covid-19, America cried foul!
Something is fishy. Coronavirus started in Wuhan yet there is no adverse effect in nearby Beijing and Shanghai, while countries in Europe and America are seriously affected.
The United States is not blaming China for fun, because not a single leader in China has tested positive. Shanghai, the city that runs China’s economy did not experience lockdown. While the world’s major economic and political centres are closed, Beijing and Shanghai are open. This gives the picture that the Coronavirus is a biochemical weapon.
I have laboured to say what reporting is all about, as well as Covid-19. Let me now look at reporting in Covid-19 Era. How can reporters stay safe while reporting about the plague? They have to obey the rules spelt out by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), coupled with the grace of God. It became imperative for newsrooms to make pandemic coverage a priority to inform and educate the public during these uncertain times.
The Covid-19 pandemic strongly impacted the journalism industry and affected the work of journalists. Many local newspapers have been severely affected by losses in advertising revenues. You know that if a paper is doing well, it is not only the rich editorial contents. It is mostly the number of pages sold, that makes the paper solvent. The editorial contents can sell all the copies printed, yet it is not enough to settle the bills. The cost of production per copy is more than the cost at the news stand. It is adverts that yield the revenue for its sustenance. Apart from the loss of revenues, journalists have been laid off, and some publications have folded.
Journalists across the globe faced unpredicted challenges to report the Coronavirus outbreak accurately and safely. These challenges led to the spread of misinformation, having cognizance of the physical and mental health of reporters fomented by social distancing. There was a revolution in online reporting.
Reporters need to look into the heart of the matter without fear or favour. They have the inalienable duty to inform and educate members of the public correctly without compromising their dignity.
The reporter is the newsmaker. People treat him the way he carries himself. He does not need to be arrogant, but confident of himself. He does not need to be over ornamented, but decent and smart, to earn respect.
He should seek the truth and reflect on his own power. Are we sure that the information being fed the public by NCDC is correct? How many laboratories do they have? How many positive cases have they confirmed? How many people are dead? There is the need for reporters to verify the authenticity of claims made by government officials. Unfortunately such verification was not possible because of lockdown. The reporter had to be contented with whatever information sifted out. There were elements of fraud by some countries who inflated the figures of confirmed cases in order to get more reliefs from WHO. It is a known fact that people were recruited to stay in isolation camps, giving wrong picture to the world, while enriching themselves through reliefs from the world body.
Nigerians received a rude shocker one fine morning when a minister alleged that billions of naira had been disbursed to them within seventy-two hours as relief package for Covid-19. It was the height of thievery. Uptil now, heaven has not fallen, while the money is resting coolly in individual pockets, to the detriment of hapless and helpless Nigerians.
As if that was not enough, what of people representing us in the National Assembly who allowed consignments meant for alleviation of the burden of the common man to crawl into their warehouse? While the people who elected them into power were famishing, and growing lean, they were eating like kings and developing robust cheeks.
Such fraudulent activities were condemned, but the condemnation was transient. The tempo should be sustained. Constant repetition of a thing will make it automatic. Those crooks should be tormented with follow-up stories. Reporters should summon the courage to seek accountability from leaders of Covid-19 relief fund or package. Now that the lockdown has been relaxed and the death figures remarkably reduced, reporters should heave a sigh of relief and make a departure from the seamy side to the lofty angle of Covid-19. It gave birth to the rise of online learning. The pandemic led to the closure of schools across the globe, and children resorted to learning online instead of classroom. It checked the activities of randy husbands who were forced to be at home. For fear of the contagious pandemic both men and women kept their distance. The level of promiscuity was drastically reduced. Children enjoyed the company of their fathers who were scarcely at home prior to the advent of the epidemic. Because of the lockdown which confined people, the major recreational activity was the act of procreation. Many wives were blessed with fruit of the womb.
Reporting has gone into coma in Covid-19 Era. It has to gain consciousness. Reporters should be resourceful. What game is WHO playing by trying to monopolize the discovery of the vaccine to combat the epidemic? Is the claim made by Madagascar that it has an answer to the menace of Covid-19 authentic? Reporters cannot afford to fold their hands and allow social media to misinform them.
There is the allegation that the vaccine government is coercing or cajoling people to take is not the panacea, because some people who obeyed the plea to take died as a result of its effect. Others claimed that the portion of their body where the vaccine was administered has become magnetic to metals.
According to the 2021 World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders, at the moment journalism is totally blocked or seriously impeded in 73 nations. Some governments have punished journalists for reporting pandemic figures that are contrary to the official figures as authorities try to cover up the true situation on the ground.
In other instances, governments have totally banned media from reporting on the pandemic and jailed others for exposing scandals related to theft of Covid-19 supplies.
Yet now, more than ever, the public has the right to factual, credible and timely information, and journalism, in the words of the Press Freedom Index, is the vaccine against disinformation…
Gentlemen of the Press, I urge you to seek the truth and report the Coronavirus outbreak accurately and safely.
Albert-Briggs is a veteran journalist in Port Harcourt.
By: Fitz Albert-Briggs
This is an open letter to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Chief Nyesom Wike.
Your Excellency,
Sir, ordinarily, I would not be writing an open letter to you, but like a wise man once said, “Silence would be Treason.” So I prefer to stay alive than face the consequences of silence in the face of crime. With each passing day, and as the socio-political tides continue to turn, it has become more pertinent that more people speak up in a concerted MANNER to prevent the death of our party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), as we appear to be, in the words of W. B. Yeats, “turning and turning in the widening gyre” heading for an end where the falcon will no longer hear the falconer
It is unfortunate that since losing control of the Federal Government, with the loss of President Goodluck Jonathan at the poll in 2015, our party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has continued on a downward spiral. It is much more painful, that where it is expected that leaders within the party should rise to the challenge and put an end to this decline of our great party, some have instead taken up roles as its undertaker.
It will be hypocritical to claim aloofness to what I believe is your grouse with the PDP and I am not a hypocrite. It will be uncharitable on my part to discountenance the role you have played in strengthening the PDP from 2015 up until the last Presidential primaries of the party. It is my belief that your grouse against certain members of the party who you perceived worked against the party and abandoned it in 2015 and then came around much later to take control of the party, is justified. Also know that your decision to remain in the Party and stifle its progress on the other hand, as a sort of payback, stands condemned. For a man of your pedigree and stature, it is a dishonorable act, highly dishonorable and stands as testimony against all you claim to stand for.
At least, it can be argued that those who you hold this grudge against, abandoned the party completely and did not sit back while actively working to destroy it from within. But what then can be the argument on your own part, seeing that those you are currently working with against your party are the same people who set in motion, and executed surgically, the plans that not only ended our Party’s leadership at the centre, but ended up dislodging the first Niger Deltan to occupy Aso Rock as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. Is this not akin to “cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face?” That will be worse than folly. Let us not throw away the baby with the bath water because we do not like the soap used in bathing the baby. It will be a grave mistake.
Honourable Minister, sir, it is rather unfortunate that of all people, you have also decided to play the role of an undertaker not only for our party, but for our dear Rivers State.
I will like to take you down memory lane a little. Let me remind you of your emergence as Guber candidate of the PDP in Rivers State, against all fairness and justice in 2014. You will remember that despite the reality being that you as an Ikwerre man was poised to replace a fellow Ikwerre man in Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi in our multiethnic state, Rivers people overwhelmingly stood by you and pushed for your emergence as Executive Governor of Rivers State in 2015. I dare say that your popularity in the entire Niger Delta region was at an all-time high at this point.
I want you to understand why you were loved across board leading to your eventual emergence as Governor of Rivers State in 2015; it was because when it looked like all were against the second term ambitions of the first Niger Delta man to emerge as President of Nigeria, you became not just a pillar but a beacon of resistance by standing for Goodluck Jonathan. Rivers people, as grateful and rewarding as they can be, paid you back by ensuring your electoral victory against the incumbent All Progressives Congress (APC) led by your predecessor. On your emergence, where there were second term Governors in the region, you, a first term Governor, was seen by the people as not just the leader of the PDP, but the leader of the entire Niger Delta region. You earned it, and no one could dispute it.
In 2019, when your re-election bid was being challenged ferociously, Rivers people once again stood solidly behind you. Many were killed in the process of defending your votes. Do you remember Dr. Ferry Gberegbe that was shot and killed while trying to protect your votes in Khana Local Government Area? There are many more unnamed and unrecognised sons and daughters of Rivers State who sacrificed their lives so that you could emerge as a second term Governor of Rivers State.
In 2022/23, Honourable Minister, you oversaw a party primary across board that saw some candidates imprisoned and internal party democracy jettisoned for your wishes, leading to the emergence of flag bearers of our party all singlehandedly picked by you. You have on more than one occasion publicly stated that you paid for all their forms. Even those shortchanged in this process licked their wounds and continued to play their roles as party members to ensure the success of the party at all levels. In what will go down as one of the most keenly contested elections in recent Rivers history, with formidable candidates like Senator Magnus Abe of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Mr Tonye Cole of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and the vibrant youth driven Labour Party (LP), PDP emerged victorious across board except for Phalga Constituency 1 that was lost to the Labour Party. (Not that you did not loose in some other LGA’s but let’s stick to the official figures declared by INEC).
It begs the question, why then do you want to burn down Rivers State, when everyone who now holds political office emerged through a process designed and endorsed by you? Is it that you do not care about Rivers people and you are all about yourself? If so, I am forced to believe that those around you are not telling you the truth. The truth being that in a state where your words were law; where houses and businesses could be demolished or closed down without any recourse to legalities, where Executive Orders could be deployed to stifle the opposition, that your popularity is now at an all-time low. Probably because they are afraid of you, or of losing the benefits they gain from you, they fail to tell you that what you might perceive as a battle against your successor, has slowly but gradually degenerating into a battle against Rivers State and Rivers people. You know, there is a popular saying that, a man can cook for the community and the community will finish the food, but when a community decides to cook for one man, the reverse is the case.
LEAVE FUBARA ALONE
You have gone on and on about being betrayed by Governor Siminalayi Fubara. You point fingers forgetting that some of those same fingers quick to spot betrayals point straight back at you. It is not Governor Fubara that has betrayed the PDP by working against it in the just concluded General Election, and working with the opposition at the State and Federal level to destabilise the party. It is you, Honourable Minister. It is not Governor Fubara that betrayed Rivers people by instigating a political crisis with propensity to escalate ethnic tensions in Rivers State. It is you Honourable Minister. It is not Governor Fubara that has declared himself God over all in Rivers State and has no qualms with burning the state to the ground to prove a point. It is you Honourable Minister. It is you Honourable Minister who told the world that the APC was a cancer and you can never support a cancerous party. It is you Honourable Minister who ended up facilitating the emergence of the same “cancerous” APC that has accelerated the economic decline of this country and further impoverished our people with no remorse. All so you can be a Minister of the Federal Capital Territory? The lack of self awareness is gobsmacking.
Some days back I came across a video where you talked about death and how you do not cry when you hear about the death of some people because you have no idea what might have caused it considering many a politician swear “over dead bodies” and still go back on their words. Those words made me think, and I could see the reason behind them. You see, in chosing to be God in the affairs of Rivers people, you have closed your eyes and ears to reason; you see nothing and hear nothing that can cause you to rethink on the path you have chosen. In your quest to “show Fubara” you have unwittingly united a vast majority of Rivers people behind him, so much that even those who despised him because of you, now like or love him, because of you too. In your scheming, I will advise you not to forget that “the voice of the people is the voice of God”.
Note that the war which you have or are waging against Governor Fubara, has gone beyond being merely political as you might see in your minds eye. It is now one that, fortunately for some and unfortunately for others, has evolved into a war against Rivers people. It is good to point out that no one has taken a stand against Rivers people and won. No one has gone against God and won. In your defiant characteristic manner, it will be unfortunate if you believe your own hubris and that of those around you on the possibility of you being the first to successfully go against Rivers people. It will be a needless gamble; one where if you win you create more enemies for yourself than you can withstand on your political journey, and if you lose, your legacy becomes an inglorious and irredeemable one in Rivers State, the Niger Delta, and Nigeria at large. For your sake as regards posterity, it is my greatest wish that you have a moment of sobriety and a deep reflection and introspection on this path you have chosen.
Honourable Minister, sir, what is left of your legacy is on the brink of being completely desecrated and relegated to the dustbin of our political history, and it will be a sad end to what I will say has been a wonderful political career that many can only dream of. The ball is in your court, and may God Almighty have mercy on us all and forgive us for our shortcomings.
Gabriel Baritulem Pidomson
Dr Pidomson is former Chief of Staff, Government House, Port Harcourt and former member, Rivers State House of Assembly.
In 2015, I made a conscious decision to invest my financial resources, my time, and energy into supporting Nyesom Wike’s gubernatorial campaign. I poured my heart and soul into ensuring Nyesom Wike emerged victorious even at the risk of my personal safety.
Again in 2019, I doubled down on my commitment. I invested a significant amount of money to procure campaign outfits for all twenty-three Local Governments Areas of Rivers State. I spared no expense in supplementing Wike’s election efforts in my own local government, and once again putting myself at great risk to safeguard the fairness and transparency of the electoral process.
However, despite my unwavering loyalty and sacrifices, I found myself abandoned and forgotten by Wike. Throughout his eight-year tenure, he failed to acknowledge my contributions or fulfill his promises and agreements. Even as a former Deputy Governor, Wike denied me my severance benefit.
My investment in Wike’s governorship was not just financial – it was a commitment of passion, dedication, and belief in a better future for Rivers State. Yet, his leadership style of dishonesty, greed, drunkenness and rash abuse of senior citizens brought me nothing but disappointment, misery and losses.
By the grace of God, today I speak not as a victim, but as a hero. I have accepted my losses, and I have moved on. And as I reflect on my experience, I cannot help but urge Wike to do the same and allow peace and development to reign in Rivers State.
Nyesom Wike, when you speak of investing in Governor Sim Fubara’s election, remember those like me who also invested in you. Remember the sacrifices I made, the risks I took, and the promises and agreements you left unfulfilled.
It is time for you, Wike, to let go of the past and allow Governor Sim Fubara the breathing space he needs to lead Rivers State forward. Allow him to focus on the challenges of good governance and the aspirations of the people. Spare him these unwarranted and ill-conceived political manoeuvrings founded on personal agenda and not for general good of Rivers State and her people.
I may have lost my investment on Wike, but I have not lost hope in the future of Rivers State. And together, we will continue to strive for a brighter tomorrow.
Long Live the Governor to Rivers State, Sir Siminialayi Fubara!
Long Live the Good People of Rivers State!!
Long Live the Federal Republic of Nigeria!!!
Engr Ikuru is former Deputy Governor of Rivers State.
Tele Ikuru
