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Journalism, PR, and Cash for Coverage: Matters Arising

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By Dr. Marcel Mbamalu

 

 

SIMPLE CONTEXTUAL DEFINITIONS

 

Who is a Journalist?

For the purpose of this discussion, a journalist can be described as a  person who collects, writes, photographs, processes, edits, or comments on news or other topical information to the public.

 

A Journalist’s work is called journalism (Wikipedia). A journalist must, in line with professional ethics, be accurate and fair. The journalist seeks Truth and reports it. He must be honest and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information…and should take responsibility for the accuracy of his work (SPJ Code of Ethics, revised September 6, 2014)

 

 

Public Relations/ Practitioner

 

The professional maintenance of a favorable public image by a company, organization, or a famous person. The PR profession ensures a company, or organization or famous person maintains good records in the public eye. The PR practitioner helps people, organizations to gain public acceptance by explaining the aims, objectives, and methods of their organization and by building and maintaining a favorable image     (https://gostudy.net/occupation)

 

Cash for Coverage/ Brown Envelope Journalism

 

Cash for coverage or Brown Envelope Journalism (BEJ) refers to giving monetary inducement to journalists to encourage them to write positive stories, slant, or kill negative ones. Brown envelop as a term was first coined in 1994 after the UK political scandal (cash-for-questions-affair) in which The Guardian alleged that the owner of Harrods department store, Mohammed Al-Fayed, had paid a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons to ask a question using a brown-colored envelope for the transaction.

 

Journalistic parlance Brown Envelope has, over time, been used to describe monetary gifts concealed in brown envelopes and given to journalists during press briefings. In broader terms, Brown Envelope Syndrome (BES) refers to the potentiality of news sources (PR agents and/or their clients) giving, and journalists taking cash at press conferences or in the general course of their duty. It describes the propensity to give and take ‘bribes’ at any point in the value chain of journalistic sourcing and transmission of news content. So, BES as an expression in media practice can conveniently be used interchangeably with Cash for Coverage Syndrome (CFCs).

It’s a “syndrome” in the sense that giving and taking cash in the course of journalistic work manifests symptomatically and can consistently occur in varied but identifiable ways. The brown “envelope” could be in any color shade (white, green, or red), in naked cash or electronic form (bank transfers). Whatever color, form or means, Brown Envelopes, in the words of Dr. C Nwachukwu of the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN), represent any “temptation wrapped in money.”

On the whole, the impact of such ‘temptation’ on content creation, presentation and dissemination are real: The Mass Media audience, the ultimate king, are misled; credibility of news content and platform is compromised setting off the stage for perennial confidence crisis between the media platform and its audience. Loss of audience confidence leads to loss of patronage (business)…and jobs.

Imagine what could happen when an individual, group of individuals, politicians or government buys off an entire edition of a newspaper, a day’s program on Radio/Television or the entire Internet space and decides that no one reads, hears or sees a particular content or that they see it in predetermined modes! Worse still, the individual or group(s) could decide to let their ‘trusting’ readers, viewers and listeners see/hear only what’s convenient and let them wallow in darkness. It’s a matter of life and death for the entire information and communication space.

Yet, the audience knows better, always able to isolate the chaff from the kernel. The reason media businesses rise and fall on content, much more on the credibility of the content. Yes, Content is King! Remember Marshall McLuhan’s postulation: “The Medium is the Message.”

 

 

It’s not just Cash

Brown Envelope or Cash For Coverage syndrome is a cankerworm. It’s much more than giving or taking cash. If brown envelopes are meant to conceal inducements (the reason the envelopes are brown, not white, in the first place), then, other forms of gifts or inducements, not manifest in clear cash benefit but whose intention is to influence story slants or to curry the journalist’s friendship/sympathy when critical information is at stake, should also pass for “Brown Envelopes.”

Consider non-cash gifts like holiday trips abroad, free training for journalists, birthday gifts and cakes, etc. Will these seemingly harmless ‘gifts’ influence the journalist’s coverage and slant of stories, especially when they matter to the audience?

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Important gifts are no longer in brown envelopes; they are now in white ‘vessels’ to accomplish saintly ‘missions.’ If good journalism practice is anchored on Truth, Fairness, and Balance for credible information, education, and entertainment of the audience, any good gesture that seeks to influence good content creation and delivery is a cankerworm.

 

Cash for coverage Vs Journalism/PR Ethics

Journalism and Public Relations are complementary professions that profess truth and abhor distortion of information/communication. Cash for news coverage defies this basic principle. Among professionals, there is a general understanding that BES is very bad for good PR practice, much worse for good Journalism; it’s an unethical practice based on journalism and PR professional ethics. The Society for Professional Journalists (SPJ) has a Code of Ethics for members, the NUJ and Press Council also have a code of ethics, all aligning with good practice bordering on truthful, courageous, fairyland patriotic news reporting devoid of inducement. Yet, does the syndrome fester?

 

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO ASK FOR CASH BEFORE COVERAGE?

 

Asking for gratification can be covert (complaints about distance and cost of transportation etc) or overt (declaring what it would cost to attend a press conference and/or to publish content therefrom). What do we make of previous scandals?

Reasons for BES among journalists and PR practitioners (What they say)

 

 

Issues about African culture of gift-giving

 

 

Nigerians believe in giving and receiving gifts formally and informally. Many say this is one of the major reasons why it’s difficult to tackle this in Nigeria.

 

Issues about PR &Journalism ideology

 

 

Do quacks truly exist in journalism and PR practice? Who truly is a journalist; the one who can write and speak impeccable English or the one who is trained, grounded, and certified on the basics of good journalism? Should Journalism and PR be different from other key professions like Medicine and Law? Can I, as a journalist be hired by a law firm to defend a client in court simply because I could argue very well? Can a good Television analyst perform a surgery on a patient because he does so with words? Not cast in iron, but these and many more are issues that perhaps, could rub off on efforts to find answers to questions under discussion. How many journalists and PR ‘agents’ ended up becoming who they are today because they could not find jobs in their disciplines after graduation?

 

Issues about Training and Retraining:

 

 

Knowledge and competence breed self-confidence and self-respect. Good retraining programs for certified members of a given profession help to engender self-confidence and mutual respect; hence, they will respect the code of ethics and overcome ‘temptations wrapped in money,’ especially in a fragile economy.

 

Issues about preaching professionalism in a fragile economy:

 

Is       Nigeria really among the poorest of the poorest countries? Does it have 20% (10.5 million) of the world’s out-of-school children? How many media organizations in Africa will survive the next 10 years? How many newspapers have an average of 200,000 print-run daily? How many of them have an average of five pages of adverts per day to stay afloat? What is the average take-home pay of Nigerian journalists? How media organizations in Nigeria pay salaries as and when due? Can we work to create saints in hell? How many oases of plenteous integrity can we find in a desert of need?

 

Yet, I see light at the end of the tunnel. There are a few Josephs, a few Daniels, a few Shedrack, Meshack, and Abadenego left!

 

On the PR side, do practitioners face pressure from employers and clients (PR)?

 

 

 

SOLUTIONS

 

Clear identity or ideology for PR and Journalism

 

Improvement in training and retraining, remuneration and reward for excellence

 

The salience of the recent unbundling of Mass Communication courses in universities to the rescue?

 

Possible redefinition of the bounds of gift-giving; must the latitude be expanded to realistically reflect certain nuances? For instance, why do patients pay for hospital cards and for drugs, yet the doctor collects separate consultation fees, nurses ask for money to buy syringes. Hospital bills still come afterward???

 

 

Are journalists tying themselves up at a time market realities are getting grimmer?

 

Public-funded BBC, CNN, and GOOGLE take adverts even from Nigerian firms and they take sides in news coverage using genres that are neither hard news, nor Feature/ opinion, but all combined in non-clear-cut reporting called ADVOCACY NEWS, which is news with explicable bias.

 

Former Minister appointed Adviser center of Journalism 

THEORETICAL UNDERPINNINGS

 

 

Social Responsibility Theory: This presupposes that the media, in discharging its critical functions, acts in social interest and for the good of the society.  Reporting dispassionately…against business logic and profit motives. In the light of current realities, the big question: Is there a more professional way to commoditize news? There are different, just like there are varied products in other professions like Law and Medicine, etc.

 

 

Media Economics: Media as a going concern and profit-oriented theory in a competitive stressful market, driven more by corporate support than by audience clientele.

 

Four-way PR Model: Sensationalism, Full Information, Symmetry, and Asymmetry. GRUNIG and HUNT 1984)

 

 

 

CONCLUSION: The Big Question

Is cash for coverage a case of professional anomaly that has become a culture, or a case of inevitable industry reality that needs some professional rethinking/adjustment? If technology is, indeed, changing many things, to what extent can it be allowed to change social laws?

Dr Marcel Mbamalu, is the News Editor of The Guardian, presented this at The Jacksonites Biweekly Webinar on August 2, 2020

Opinion

Nasir El-rufai: The Strategic Politician in Recent Times

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By Abubakar Sadiq Dauda

Malam, as he is fondly called, is a very brilliant politician with alot of success stories. He is a genius per excellence when it comes to politics. He sets his main priorities and cares less about other sub priorities that may not yield to any serious positive impact. That simple act of setting his main target and work tirelessly to ensure that he delivers on the mandate makes him an outstanding politician.

In 2013, he was the brain behind the formation of APC. He committed his entire time and energy to bring Tinubu, Buhari and Atiku into thesame fold. The goal then was to defeat the ruling party, PDP.

Initially, he refused to compromise on his main target by not seeking for any elective position, which he knows may affect the chances of achieving his main priority. As fate will swing into his favour, former President Muhammadu Buhari, who was the major contender in the opposition as it was then, requested that El-rufai must contest for Kaduna governorship position in 2015. The rest is now history.

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Fast-forward to 2023, El-rufai showed his zealousness and potentials by going for the bigger ‘fish’ again. His main objective was to make sure Tinubu (who hail from the South) succeeds Buhari, and APC should continue to take charge of the affairs of Kaduna state. He chose not to vie for any office in other for him to commit his time, effort and resources to achieve his main objective. The rest as they say is now history.

Again, today being the 10th of March, 2025, a well known discourse (judging by strategic meetings held recently) was finalized, formalized and brought into the public sphere by thesame figure, Nasir El-Rufai. The theme which is well known in many quarters is to make sure that the Government of the day at both national and at state level (emphasis on Kaduna) lost the election that will graciously take place in 2027.

Malam is fully committed to attain thesame success he recorded particularly in 2015 and 2023. In other for Malam to be successful, he will remain steadfast, focused and committed in achieving his main objective (judging by his past precedence).

Unlike many politicians and political actors, Malam believes in personal sacrifices to ensure that he gets the job done. He is able to outline is main priorities and commit all he has to attain the greater success he aspire, not minding whose ox is gored.

His fearlessness, foresight, brilliance, hard-work has overtime proves beyond doubt that he is indeed a strategic politician who should not be taken in for a ride.

Sadiq is a political analyst, writes from Kano and can be reached via sadiqdauda55@gmail.com

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Opinion

Ganduje Decorates Barau, Political General

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From Abba Anwar

Thrilled by the consistent effort of the Deputy Senate President, Barau I Jibrin, CFR, in making the All Progressives Congress (APC) waxing stronger across Nigeria, the National Chairman of APC, His Excellency (Dr) Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, CON, decorates the DSP with a title of Political General.

As the hall of the event to receive members of the Coalition of Atiku Abubakar Support Groups, from 19 Northern states, into the fold of the ruling APC, roared with standing ovation, the National Chairman continued, “Distinguished Barau I. Jibrin’s capacity is beyond his constituency, Kano North or Kano State.”

Silencing all hues and cries about Barau’s role in accepting members of other parties at the local level, Ganduje reminded that, “Initially people thought Distinguished Barau I. Jibrin, representing Kano North Senatorial District, is only working in Kano for receiving members of other political parties to APC in Kano.

But you can see that, he is going beyond that. He is liberating those people especially those committed to democracy, convincing them to join APC, not only from Kano or from North, but from other parts of the country.”

He commended that,” Senator Barau is a real political General.”

To further show his inner most appreciation of the Deputy Senate President’s effort in strengthening the party from many fronts, Ganduje concurred that,”… after the Fasting period all members of this Coalition will be gathered in Abuja under the leadership of Distinguished Senator Barau Jibrin, so that we invite Mr President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the Vice President, Senate President and Right Honorable Speaker, House of Representatives, to formally receive all your members.

In order to register the death and the collapse of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Nigeria. Not only in the Northern part of the country.”

The National Chairman of APC was at the event with all members of the National Working Committee of the party. What this indicates is, how important and relevant is Barau’s effort in molding party structures and brilliant engagement in the nation’s political experiment.

Recent cemented relationship between Ganduje and Barau signals many things for the party and individuals. Alignment and realignment, among other political strategies, are a condition that scares APC opponents, real and perceived, in Kano, North and the country as a whole.

The way I see it, is this, as Barau started with local push, in accepting local politicians, entertainers and political novices, in some circumstances, his recent engagement with Coalition of Atiku Support Groups, speaks volume in understanding how deep he has gone in the national scheme of things of the ruling APC. He is more or less, becoming a pillar. Particularly with the endorsement of the National Chairman.

What Barau is up to, is subject to many interpretations. Depending on the side of the prism one is standing. But one fundamental item in his activities is this, that, he is making the party to be more visible, more vibrant, more relevant and stronger in multi-faceted manifestations. Left to me, I can say Barau is not too much concerned about local politics.

On his part, DSP appreciated that, since Ganduje became the National Chairman of APC, “… since he came in we did not lose any election. The party is waxing stronger day in day out. He has shown that he is capable. So we are proud of you Mr Chairman Sir.”

Adding that, “We thank you for making Kano state proud we thank you for making North West proud. And we thank you for making Nigeria proud. His Excellency Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, CON, proves to all that he is a detribalised national leader.”

Anwar, was Chief Press Secretary to the former Governor of Kano State, Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, CON, and can be reached at fatimanbaba1@gmail.com

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Opinion

Barau’s Kano Project : Kwankwasiyya, Kannywood, TikTok Deserters

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By Abba Anwar

Whether or not those joining All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kano state, through Deputy Senate President, Barau Jibrin CFR, are doing that with genuine mind and valid reason, the fact remains, that, political opposition and politicking are becoming lively day in day out, in the state.

The recent hues and cries shaping party cross carpeting, with particular reference to the DSP’s engagement with Kwankwasiyya followers, Kannywood elements and some identified TikTokers is on increase in the state. Both freedom of expression and freedom of choice at play.

Believe it or not, one cannot separate Barau and APC in this political engagement. Those changing party membership under Barau, are changing to APC ultimately, not to Barau. Because the institution is the party, APC, not Barau.

It is clear to all that, Barau is positioning himself against 2027 Kano Project. That in itself isn’t a political sin. If his target is Kano, as a political space, his feats achieved within a specified period of time, go beyond Kano. Not to talk of his primary constituency, Kano North Senatorial District.

Let me say this, before now, I faulted Barau’s strategy for welcoming political opponents, Kwankwasiyya followers especially. Arguing that, what was the wisdom behind welcoming someone today, who could reverse back to where he exited, in few days time

I later realized that, as some Kwankwasiyya elements use Barau as an entry point, it was revealed openly to the Deputy Senate President, that, some of those coming to APC through him, were planted as moles for the opposition. With this, he pays back to them, using “repentant elements,” as paid agents within the opposition circle.

Reason for one-touch strategy, as I blamed him the other time. (laughter).

So it is now not very clear whether those making u-turn after taking “oath” before Barau, are genuinely going back to where they started, Kwankwasiyya, in this context. The same thing applies to Kannywood elements, artistes and TikTokers.

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But what interests onlookers most, is his indifferent behavior about all the hues and cries. Which, to me, it appears like he is acting a particular script by accepting opposition elements into APC. Whose script and from where? Such questions remain unanswered.

I am envisaging that some big shots are making their wave to Barau, as an entry point. This time around, it is not the issue of Kannywood actors /actress, or artistes or other similar individuals. People of greater substance and relevance by all political standard. Ours is to wait and see.

But let me assure my readers that, when that situation comes its natural way, more storm will overwhelm APC opponents in Kano, and elsewhere by extension. So who is calling the shot?

Some people argue that, among all those with positions from Kano state, either elected or appointed, with the exception of the National Chairman of All Progressives Congress (APC) Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje CON, – who, by constitutional provision, cannot vie for Kano governorship position again – Barau stands better chance.

As an addendum also, you cannot compare Barau with the current governor of Kano State, Alhaji Abba Kabir Yusuf, in terms of productivity, creative mind, political experience, exposure, charisma, intellectual sagacity, public presentation, public relations, domineering posture, independent mind and action, enhanced interpretation of political engagement and unwavering loyalty and support to party ideals and manifesto.

Without fear of mincing words, I can say, Barau can make a good governor than the current governor of our dear state, Yusuf. I am just being scientific. Just compare their achievements so far in the state. Though, Barau coming from the legislative arm, but his interventions, real interventions, to the lives of ordinary Kano man, are unmatched. Compared to that of the governor. Yes the governor.

But the way I see it, is this, if achievements are the yardstick for measuring one’s political chances, to me, Barau’s relevance goes beyond Kano, or merely his primary constituency, Kano North. I stand to be corrected. If one’s achieved feats are indices, I bet my position.

To me, if Kwankwasiyya’s cross carpeting, through the entry point, Barau, is reversible, as some of them provided that explanation, by their action, there is nothing extraordinary when Kannywood people alongside TikTokers, follow suit.

Take it or leave it, Barau’s visibility in Kano political space, is something not to be taken for granted. The ploy upon ploy smuggle into the threshold of political engagement in the state, are enough reasons to explain to you that, Barau is not a political dummy. Neither an inexperienced political flagship. Someone with the highest position in the National Assembly, from North West,with the exception of Kaduna, that produces Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Anwar, was Chief Press Secretary to the former Governor of Kano State, Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje CON and can be reached at fatimanbaba1@gmail.com

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