When my generation was growing up, Nigeria was able to condition us via NTA (Nigerian Television Authority). Through NTA, they passed everything, and the nation was in control of everything. But as the internet began to diffuse into Nigeria, providing other sources for people to have access to news and broad information, Nigeria began to lose control of its capacity to control what people watched, read, etc. Yes, even the highly popular Sunday sitcom tonic – Masquerade with Zebrudaya, Ovuleria, Apnea, Jegede Sokoya, etc – faded on NTA channels.
Interestingly, the unbounded and uncontrolled nature of the internet makes it disruptive. You win it today but it will enable new competitors to take you down.
Where am I going? I saw this stat on American big media and was like “really”? Bear with me, I do not flatly believe any non-financial and -economic news on the big media. That means I do not rely on them on geopolitics and broad global affairs because in those two areas, they are not offering journalistic values.
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And in this age when Trump is not the president to drop bombastic statements to push ratings up on air and online, geopolitics is dominating the bit-wares and airwaves, and many people are going for citizen-journalism which provides “fair and balanced” perspectives on global issues. From Ukraine to Gaza, big media danced naked on the altar of agenda journalism, and they’re paying the prices.
Of course, this is not new. What happens now is that through the web, we can read the other viewpoints unlike in the past when only what the big media packaged was the absolute truth. Business 101: never take your customers for granted.
When my generation was growing up, Nigeria was able to condition us via NTA (Nigerian Television Authority). Through NTA, they passed everything, and the nation was in control of everything. But as the internet began to diffuse into Nigeria, providing other sources for people to… pic.twitter.com/UGGc8KMCEs
— Ndubuisi Ekekwe (@ndekekwe) March 5, 2024
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Tucker Carlson is more influential than all of them put together. The mistake is in arrogantly assuming that you know what is good for the people and what they should consume. No thinking person can be comfortable with one-sided story or narrative, even when the other party is classed as evil or demon, people would want to hear the demon, at least to get the sound of his voice.
If the other source is not reliable, what makes you reliable? What we see as news are agendas, impartiality and objectivity only exist in dictionaries.