Understanding NBC’s Memo to Broadcast Stations

Adeola Adewumi

A purported letter from the Director of Monitoring of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to broadcast stations on the need to review how they handle the newspaper review section of the breakfast shows has generated a lot of furore, both in traditional media and new media.

And going by the fact that the present government is not the most popular in the history of the country around this time, perhaps one can sympathise with those who are claiming that the NBC wanted to stifle free speech and further shield the government from interrogation and also prevent broadcast stations from performing their statutory duties.

To me, and if we look beyond our emotions and how Nigerians become animated when issues of security are being discussed, then we can know that perhaps, the NBC is trying to protect Nigerians.
Now, let’s take a look at part of the content of the letter signed by Franca Ayetan, the Commission’s Head of Monitoring:

“Headlines of most newspapers on daily everyday are replete with security topics. While bringing information on security to the doorsteps of Nigerians is a necessity, there is need for caution as too much details may have adverse implications on the efforts of our security officials are duty bound to deal with the insurgency.”

At times, many of us are not aware that our mental and emotional well-being is tied to what we consume in terms of information. That is why when professional broadcast stations want to show certain visuals, they advise viewers’ discretion. Not every human being has the capacity to watch or view images of someone who had just been beheaded or someone being garroted.

While our broadcast stations, I am aware, will never broadcast images like those, they are also duty bound to know where to draw the line when security issues are being discussed. We must also be aware that many of those who come to discuss these newspaper headlines in front of camera are not security experts.
Nigerians deserve the right to know. And freedom of information is an integral part of the sustenance of the democratic experiment. So no regulatory agency will ever want to tamper with this freedom.

However, Nigerians need to know that the kind of freedom the print media has, broadcasting does not have. And this is the nature of the industry anywhere in the world. While the print medium can report the deaths of soldiers or officers during a war or insurgency, the fact of the matter is that broadcast stations have no liberty to do this. In fact, even the print medium, in saner climes, cannot do that. That announcement (do I say reporting) can only be done after the next of kin of these slain officers and soldiers have been duly informed. And if we pay attention, if Sky News or CNN is reporting the death of any soldier in the front, they will always add at the end that the families of these dead officers have been informed.

At times, the families of officers who died in the front have not been informed about the deaths of their loved ones and their deaths are already front page news in newspapers, social media and are being reviewed on TV. While the media must do its work, there is also the need to respect sensibilites.

In the same vein, there is the need to also understand that we have to stop making these insurgents feel important. If we look at the slant of reporting, the impression being created is that they are gaining upper hand. But that may not be the case. So many heroic exploits of our officers and men go unreported.
“Not glamorising the nefarious activities of insurgents, terrorists, kidnappers and bandits” (as written in the said memo) is very important if we have to change the psyche of our people to have a feeling that this war can be won by our security agencies.

Personally, I hardly use the words ‘Fulani herdsmen’ for reasons which border on the fact that while we know that some of these people are actually killers, it also does not help if we stereotype a whole people over the activities of some misguided elements. And besides, many of these herdsmen are at peace with their hosts wherever they are.

From the foregoing, the NBC is not against newspapers being reviewed during breakfast shows. The commission has relied massively on the support of the print media during its formative years. It is one critical aspect of the Mass Media the commission can never joke with.

It must also be noted that a 35 year-old Nigerian might never know or understand the battle the commission fought to get the Nigerian broadcast industry to where it is today especially in the area of local content.
Some 20 years ago, the Nigerian content accounted for less than 30% of what was being shown on our local stations in the name of music and movies. Not that we could not produce enough to fill the gap, so many things were also hampering these productions. NBC went to work and got broadcast stations to do more, both terrestrial and cable stations. Today, we have Africa Magic stations which started as one potpourri of local movies but now we have African Magic Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Urban, Showcase and so on on DSTV. Apart from this, the NBC got the cable TV giants to bring many Nigerians stations on their platform. You can watch AIT, Channels, MiTV, LTV, Silverbird, NTA and so on any part of the country as long as you have any DSTV decoder and no matter your subscription plan.

All these are made possible by the efforts of NBC. Can the same mother want to kill same children she raised? Perhaps, the younger generation of Nigerians need to know where the NBC is coming from. They will know that even if the government of the day is not living up to expectations, it is one agency that will never joke with the interests of the Nigerian television viewing public.

Adewumi, a local content producer, writes in from Lagos.