Why It Is A Must For Journalists To Collect ‘Bribe’ – Simon Ateba

People have been asking me, “Simon , were you at that press
conference on 14 September where Prophet T.B. Joshua allegedly gave N50,000 to
journalists to write a positive story on the building collapse that killed many
people?”, my answer is always the same.

I was not at that event, I do not know if he gave a bribe, I
do not know if it was N50,000, and cannot comment on it. But I do not feel
better or more righteous in any way than those who might have collected
anything, if money was given.‎

The truth is this, as long as journalists in Nigeria are not
paid for months or are given irregular crummy salaries, as long as they are not
insured, as long as publishers pocket all the corrupt money they get in the
forms of adverts or special reports from corrupt politicians, and as long as
Nigerians refuse to spend their money on newspapers, which push publishers to
solicit money from politicians who have pocketed everything, many journalists
will continue to accept gifts, bribes or whatever you call it.

I understand that foreign journalists at the event and a
Nigerian journalist allegedly rejected the money. I am happy they allegedly did
and that’s where the profession should be. That’s the ideal we all want. But
that’s not where we are.

Most journalists in Nigeria have no insurance. Many
newspapers in Nigeria have not paid their reporters for months, some even a
year, including those newspapers that are even getting those corrupt advert
money from government officials.

A CNN, Reuters, Associated Press or BBC journalist will surely
die if he was not paid for one year, had no insurance, no house to live in, and
no friend to support him.

And many former journalists who are now successful and even
the society at large, are very wicked. They see a journalist who is striving to
stand out, who wants to be objective and unbiased, they watch him as life
challenges crush him to death. No car, no house, no savings, nothing to show
for 20 years of work. And when such a journalist accepts a gift, the same
society says, look at him, he’s corrupt. He’s biased. He’s unethical.

But the same society screaming does not buy newspapers, they
prefer to spend all their money on drinks, cigarettes, clothes, bags and cars
but demand and expect higher standards from the media. So I am sorry to say it
won’t happen.

The society is hypocritical and the media industry is sick.
But until there’s a shift, nothing will change.

You can say these are just excuses. You may even add that
the media should be our conscience, and only truth is acceptable. You will be
passing a superficial judgement, because you cannot just should look at
corruption in the media without understanding why the rot is so deep and the
change so hard.

You must understand that it is the product of a failed
society. A corrupt government, a corrupt judiciary, a corrupt police force, a
corrupt army, a corrupt civil society, a corrupt banking and financial system,
‎a corrupt educational system, a corrupt political system, in summary, it is
the product of a failed country that does nothing when journalists are not paid
for months or are left to wallow in poverty after serving their nations for 20
years.

I used to know a journalist who passed on after working for
his company for many years in Lagos, ‎and his wife was given only one month
salary to take care of herself and their kids. I guess, this, certainly, is not
the future we all envisaged after graduating with a First Class at the
University.

My rambling is getting too long. Let me summarise.

The journalist who leaked the alleged bribery to the public
claimed that he did so because journalists were too soft on Prophet T.B. Joshua
and were not reporting the truth. ‎

Hear him: “‎I observed that Nigerian media were being too
gentle on TB Joshua despite the glaring irregularities surrounding the
collapse. I read more reports about the “hovering craft” and how Boko Haram
could have sabotaged the building.

“Very little was reported about the structural defects of
the building. Not much was written about the fact that the building originally
had 2 floors and was being illegally refurbished with 4 additional floors when
it collapsed. We didn’t come hard on the Synagogue Church goons who attacked
first responders. We didn’t highlight the fact that many of those that perished
could have been saved if NEMA officials weren’t barred from the site for almost
three days! We didn’t make an issue of the fact that our colleagues who had
gone to report the collapsed building were molested on Saturday.‎”

Of course, you all know that these are lies. What he’s
saying is not factual. Or maybe he did not read reporting of the building
collapse enough.

On 15 September, the day after the alleged bribe was given
to journalists, P.M.NEWS ‎published this editorial: http://www.pmnewsnigeria.com/2014/09/15/the-synagogue-tragedy/
. You can read it yourself and let me know if it looked like they were being
soft on T.B. Joshua or hiding the facts.

The 20-year old newspaper sai‎d in that editorial: “Perhaps
most of the dead victims would have been rescued alive if the church staff and
people perceived as thugs did not prevent officials of the National Emergency
Management Agency, NEMA, from carrying out rescue operations immediately the
building crumbled.

Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola, had to intervene by
visitting the scene of the disaster and ordering the church staff to leave  the site before rescue work could start in
earnest.”

The newspaper concluded it editorial by saying: “‎We must go
beyond speculation to serious investigation to unravel the facts and prevent
future tragedies of this magnitude. Those who are found wanting should be made
to face the full wrath of the law.”

Does that look like a newspaper trying to protect T.B.
Joshua or that did not care about the dead?

Of course not.

But that was not all. the same day, the cover story of
P.M.NEWS ‎in Lagos read: “Boko Haram Attack: Nigerians Blast T.B. Joshua‎”.

The lead or the first paragraph of that story read:
“‎Nigerians have blasted Prophet T.B. Joshua of the Synagogue Church of All
Nations for claiming that Boko Islamist sect might have brought down a
six-storey building in his church that has killed more than 40 people.”

That front page story was published on 15 September. Does it
look like people who were buying the story of a jet hovering over the building
before it came down?

These examples were just from P.M.NEWS. It was the same
thing for The Punch, The Nation, Vanguard, The Sun, ThisDay, Tribune, The New
Telegraph, TheNews Magazine, and even TVC and Channels TV, as well as other
television and radio stations.

So it is not factual to say that Nigerian journalists were
being soft on T.B. Joshua or were hiding the facts. It is simply a lie. ‎

If Nigerian journalists collected the money, they did so
because of a sick industry, a failed state and the reasons I mentioned above. But
the money certainly did not change the facts. And we all knew the facts even
before the audio was leaked last week. ‎

One thing I can say is that until investigation is conducted
and concluded, no one can claim to know exactly what led to the building collapse.‎
It will just be ranting, and rambling that lead to semantic noise but nothing
evidential or concrete.

‎I can say more, and go on and on, but for now, it’s time to
mourn the dead.‎ May their souls rest in peace.