Mass Media And The Coverage Of Human Rights Issues In Nigeria

1.1 Introduction

1.1 Background of the Study

This research work studies the mass media"s contributions to the political values of openness and democratic accountability that go by the name of "transparency". In fact, the metaphor of transparency encompasses three separate political virtues, which often work together but are analytically distinct. The first kind of transparency is informational transparency, knowledge about government actors and decisions and access to government information. Informational transparency can be furthered by requiring public statements of the reasons for government action, or requiring disclosure of information the government has collected. A second type of transparency is participatory transparency, the ability to participate in political decisions either through fair representation or direct participation. A third kind of transparency is accountability transparency: the ability to hold government officials accountable either to the legal system or to public opinion where they violate the law or when they act in ways that adversely affect people"s interest.

In theory, at least, mass media can make the political system more transparent in all three respects: mass media can help people understand the operations of government, participate in political decisions, and hold government officials accountable. In practice, however, its effect are often quite different. In the age of mass media, democratic governments and politicians may find it useful to stimulate the political virtues of transparency does not serve the underlying political values that motivate the metaphor of transparency. Instead, it is a transparency that observes and obfuscates, that frustrates accountability and hides important information in a mass of manufacturing political realities. It is a form of transparency that is not transparent at all.

This paper analyses the watchdog role played by the media in the coverage of human rights issues in Nigeria. It discusses the role of the media in the transition period between 1988 and 1999, as well as their championing of a cleaner and healthier polity in expressing highly placed state officials who got into office through fake credentials or by making bogus claims. Case studies of the media in this respect include the disgrace from office of Alhaji Salisu Buhari, former speaker of the house of representative as well as the fall of Senator Chuba Okadigbo, former senate president, who was impeached in the wake of allegations of corruption and misappropriation of funds. To get to grips with the role of the media in the national controversies, the editorial content of the publications, which championed these struggles were identified and collated. These were complimented where possible, by interviews with some of the editorial personnel involved in these episodes.

1.2 Statement of the Research Problems

In democracy, the mass media are the watchdog of the people. The citizens are usually mobilized and informed to create awareness on the political culture.

Political culture refers to a system of politics in which sovereignty is vested on the people rather than a small clique, or an oligarchy, a political arrangement that places emphasis on the accountability of polity where the rule of law, majority rule and constitutionalism is the basic guiding principle.

Perhaps, it could be argued that the political crisis that pervaded our recent past points to the fact that most of our people are ignorant of an apathetic towards the country"s observe that in Nigeria electioneering and voting pattern cannot be validated, in the voting pattern of Nigerians and the possible estimation of the voter"s attitude towards politics.

1.3 Objectives of the Study

The level of political participation in Nigeria and Enugu state in particular seems to be very low. Also, the political crisis occurring in this country has equally been attributed to several factors. The purpose of this study is to identify the reason or reasons that have contributed to this low political participation in Nigeria politics.

In doing so, what usually comes to mind is to ask the question what is the reason for the low political participation in Nigeria politics and equally the causes of the constant political crisis? As usually, it may be traced to several factors like low level of awareness and tribalism, how can this awareness be obtained? This will lead us to this research topic.

Therefore, this study is intended to inquire into how political participation in Nigeria politics and equally trace the genesis of the political crisis that identifies the factors responsible and solution sought.

1.4 Research Questions

To what extent do journalists select and cover human rights stories?

To what extent do journalists avoid bias or distortion of human rights information?

To what extent does government influence the role of the mass media in reporting human rights issues in the country?

What are the people"s attitudes to the role of mass media in gate keeping and reporting of human rights issues?

Addressing these questions, this report examines the news and reporting process and its relations with human rights organizations. It assesses the difficulties of communicating complex human right issues accurately and suggests ways in which coverage of human rights could be improved.

1.5 Significance Of The Study

It is expected that this study would be immense benefit to the government, the mass media and the people of this country. This study will highlight the importance of the mass media as a vehicle for political mobilization in a transition era.

Through the mass media, especially the radio and television in Nigeria might have a chance of having a viable political culture and help to choose a leadership that will inculcate a viable and sustaining democracy. This will also give us a society blessed with.

As right put by GORAN HEDEBRO-"communication media can create a climate change by including a new valves.

The purpose of this report is to discuss the difficulties of reporting human right issues and establish what lessons can be drawn from different experiences so as to make sound recommendations to the journalistic profession, policy makers, and human right advocates in the chapter.

2.1 The Review

The objective is to improve the quality and consistency of work in this area. The report is concerned with the media"s capacity to provide accurate, reliable, and timely information on issues that involve human right. A quantitative study would show that the media devote a great deal of attention to this subject. It would also show that, despite all the attention given, the media fail to report much that ought to be known, at least in the estimation of those who are victims. How should journalists and editors who work in the media judge themselves, when they try to assess the quality of their reporting in this area? This second question raises vast issues and there is no attempt here to be comprehensive.

Journalism is no easy task at the best of times, but, just occasionally, there are moments when journalists and media are confronted by a story so big that it tests their notion of professionalism to the limit. In the case of Herbert Macaulay, when he wrote and criticized heavily the colonial government, this was against his human right exercise. So it was on May 11, 1909 in Nigeria when hundreds of millions of viewers around the country tuned into vivid pictures of raw, unedited horror. Within hours global journalism, in all sectors of media, faced its stiffest challenge in half a century.

Questions about how journalists work and the media"s capacity to provide accurate, reliable and timely information on human right issues are at the heart of this report. It is not seeking to put journalists on trial, or to make excuses for incompetence, or to define some new communications policy, but it fires the opening shots in a fresh debate between journalists and human rights activists and others about the role of media in modern society. The report asserts that journalists need to think anew about how media play the human rights story and for that matter, how media serve a changing world. There could be no better time for such reflection. As the international community launches a fierce and protracted battle without borders, and as political strategists cite "the war against terrorism" as reason enough to roll back recently won victories for human rights and civil liberties, both journalists and rights activists have good reason to make common cause in defense of accurate information, thoughtful global communication and independent journalism.

The problem facing journalists is how to protect their independence when the world around them calls for their unquestioning allegiance to the cause, whether it is going to war on the struggle against violations of human rights. While journalists can do good, it is not their purpose, most journalists may well sign up to the notion that democratic pluralism and respect for human rights from the core of unifying political ideology, but few wish to be told to follow a particular policy or strategy.

The report analyses the nature of media processes that are internal, the exchange on human rights between the media and organizations that seek to influence them and the difficulty of communicating complicated information. How can the media communicate effectively (separating systematically editorializing and news -reporting and dealing with the velocity of coverage)? How can the media remain independent and avoid bias? Certain places have more influence on these processes than others. Influence tends to be concentrated in Northern capitals where powerful governments and influential media organizations are located. Governments are concerned with on the one hand handling stories where they are themselves violators, and on the other, managing human rights information about other governments(allies, sponsors, client states, enemy and "rogue" states).

The process affects some journalists and media organizations more than others. However, in this new environment, it is no longer sufficient for individual journalists to be alert. Reporting human rights requires a more considered response. How should editors and journalists respond institutionally?

2.2 Human Rights as a News Topic

In recent years, it has become apparent to observers as well as practitioners of mass communication that human rights is more newsworthy than it was. The media have become more interested not only in violations of human righty"s, but in the institution apparatus that has been designed to promote and protect human rights. Partly this is due to the fact that many government and international institutions have integrated human rights principles into their policy frameworks. Formally, therefore, the human rights discourse and human rights law influence directly public policy and diplomatic relations in ways that was not the case until the end of the cold war. Since 1945, but more especially in the last twenty five years, numerous international standards and conventions have been approved and ratified by governments and international organizations. They set out detailed guidelines on unacceptable and acceptable conduct in numerous areas of life.

Through journalists have expanded coverage of human rights issues into new areas, many human rights issues are under-reported issues that are less visible or slow processes are covered rarely. Human rights are still taken largely to mean political and civil rights, and the importance of economic, social and cultural rights is ignored widely by the media in their coverage of economic issues, including the international economy poverty, inequity and social and economic discrimination.

In the course of this research, three broad concerns were identified

First the media are said to confuse issues because of have a superficial grasp of the institutional apparatus of human rights as a news topic nevertheless as evidenced by what they write many journalists would be hard present to explain the difference between the different mechanisms that exist to monitor adherence to human rights treaties or even distinguish between humanitarian and human rights law. Where as most general reporters dealing with international affairs could explain the difference between the World bank and the international monetary fund, human rights mechanisms are taken to be rather arcane and specialist territory.

Second, by not paying attention to human rights, in duding economic and social rights in the media of countries where such rights are not well established the media miss stories or dimension of stories which diminish the professional value of their reporting this criticism applies particularly to media coverage of powerful interests in their own societies.

Third the media are accused of missing the context of human rights stories (historical, political, social and local contexts).

This occurs even in the cases where the media are covering a story or stories that are not of immediate public concern, but are in effect, reporting on a historical event about which more info9rmation has been uncovered and which for that reams is considered newsworthy.

Some observers believe that such failures demonstrate that there is little point in the journalistic profession"s search for reportorial and editorial standard that would enhance.

2.3 Human Rights and the Media in History

The international bill of rights

The modern body of internationally guaranteed human rights or the universal declaration of human rights (udhr or the universal declaration) promulgated by the united nations in 1948 this document comprehensive in the rights that it addressed and still radical in its substance was subsequently enacted into a series of treaties notably the international covenant on economic social and cultural rights (ICESCR) and the international covenant on civil and political rights (ICCPR) in 1966. These have binding power on states that are party to them.

This body of rights has three defining characteristics

It is universal

It is indivisible and

It is enforceable.

These characteristics distinguish the modern human rights system from anything that came before universality means that the rights within the UDHR are the entitlement of every human person, by virtue of their being human.

These particular characteristics of the modern human rights system distinguish it from what preceded it. However, this system did not emerge exinihilo. The fundamental values underpinning human rights are to be found in a variety of traditional and animist beliefs it is debatable whether the emergence of the human rights system in the post-second word war world was the culmination of a long historical ascent or the product of a fortuitous set of circumstances. Either way, the standards enunciated in the UDHR and subsequent treaty documents are a synthesis of ethical thought. They protect rights to life, conscience, opinion, expression, political participation, liberty, non-discrimination, self-determination, asylum, work, health, education and social security to name only some of the key rights. They give specific protection to groups such as women, racial or ethnic groups, children, indigenous peoples and refugees. The historical reality, not surprisingly, has limped some way behind.

The mechanisms created to protect human rights at an international level were rather less impressive than the rights themselves. A United Nations human rights commission, an intergovernmental body was charged with protecting rights. It established a growing number of sub-commissions and thematic mechanisms to address violation of particular rights.

2.4 The Nature of Human Rights

Mitchell, (2003), when human rights norms are in place, certain requirements are imposed on government. It requires that the conduct of government and military force must comply with these standards. It also legitimizes the complaints of individuals in those cases where fundamental rights and freedom are not respected. Such rules constitute a standard for the conduct of government and the administration of force. They can be used as universal and non-discriminatory guideline for formulating or criticizing law and as rules for proper conduct.

2.4.1 Rights of the Child

A child is anybody who is less than 18years. Violation of child rights is common. Such violation include sale of children, violence against children, child prostitution, pornography, child detention, child trafficking e.t.c. The United Nations (UN) convention on the rights of the children was adopted by the UN general assembly on 20th of November, 1989. Nigeria like other countries ratified the convention. The African union (AU) formerly the organization of African unity (OAU) adopted a charter on the rights and welfare of the African child in 1990.

The OAU preordained the 1990sas the "Decade of the African child" June 16th of every year was set aside as the "Day of the African child" (ELIZABETH, 2010). Some of the rights of the child include right to life, right to a name, family nationality, right to rest, recreation according to his or her age, right to compulsory basic education, to good health, protection from sexual

Explanation, drug abuse, child labor, torture, neglect freedom from discrimination irrespective of ethnic, origin, birth, color, sex, language, religion, political and social beliefs, status or disability.

2.4.2 Rights of Women

Women and girls are often vulnerable to rape sexual violence during armed conflict. Trafficking women is also a form of sexual slavery in which market for prostitution. In December 1979, the United Nations (UN) adopted a convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (CEDAN). The right of women include, right to work, right to all benefits and condition of service, right to receive vocation training, right to social security, right to family benefit, right to financial credit, right to have access to adequate health care facilities, right to education formal and non formal e.t.c (Elizabeth, 2010)

2.5 Theoretical Framework

Communication process theory.

Kunle, (2005: 25) defined communication as the process by which an idea is transferred from a source to a receiver with the intention of changing his or her behavior. Other definitions could subsist but this is good enough for the purpose of this work.

Kunle, (2005: 73) established that communication is a complex process. It is an exchange or sharing of information or message. As such it requires basic components to make it happen. These components are: the source, the originator of the message, the medium through which the message or information is conveyed, the receives and the feedback which of course is the answer (the reaction of the receiver to the message; while noise is anything that interferes and cause distortion in the message such as: miss- spelt words , poor reading and listening skills. Laughing and jeering are all know as semantic noise.

2.5.1 Development Media Theory

According to Raufu, (2003), "development media theory" is a relative new communication orientation which arose as a part of the debate on new world information order that indicates the need for a profound restructuring of communication patterns. The theory places emphasis on the involvement of the grassroots in the communication flow and implies that the press must be placed as a tool on the path of the country"s economic development.

Mequail, (1978), sum up the basic tenets of development theory as follows:

Media must accept and carry out positive development tacks in line with nationally established policies.

Freedom of the media should be open to economic priorities and development needed in the society.

Media should give priority to national culture and languages.

The theory advocates socialist purpose use of media towards achieving certain socio-political and economic goals.

The media under this theory, is expected to understand the views and aspirations of the masses and transmit them to government, thereby assuming the "voice of the voiceless role"

2.5.2 Concept Analysis, Definition And Explanation

The mass media

The word media refers to the mass media of communication: radio, television, newspapers, internet, and magazine e.t.c some see it as new audio visual aids: some see media as relating to library and information technology.

Betty,(2002) defined Media as a various means of communication technology such as television, radio, newspaper, press, news reporting agencies, internet, movies, mobile devices, video games e.t.c.

Functions of mass media by Obafemi, (1994) are:

Surveillance of the environment.

Correlation and co-ordination of facts.

Persuasion

Transmission of social heritage.

Opinion molding.

Agent of mobilization.

Projector of self help development.

Partner in culture/tradition preservation, maintenance and substances.

Educator"s of a unique kind who give attention to economic, social and political matters.

Bridger of government-community-social-political-economic distance.

Summary, Conclusion and Recommendations

5.1 Summary

Human rights issues have become important subjects in our media today. Those rights include: freedom from unlawful imprisonment, torture, execution or fair and equal treatment, etc. The scope of the rights is civil, political, economic, social, legal, environmental or cultural rights.

They are universal, inalienable, indivisible, non-discriminatory and fundamental to human existence. Human Development and on Human Rights have given new shape to old aspirations and objectives. Extensive use of these two distinct modes of normative thinking, respectively invoking human development and human rights, encourages the question of whether the two concepts can be viewed together in a more integrated way, gaining something through being combined in a more comprehensive vision. To answer this question, it is important not only to have a clear understanding of what the two concepts - human development and human rights - mean, but also to examine their commonalities and their differences. Indeed, it is necessary to undertake two basic diagnostic inquiries.

5.2 Conclusion

Tejumaiye, [2004], contends that Guide-Dog journalism is derived from general disinterestedness of citizens in societal or collective problems. It is a proactive as well as reactive phenomenon to the collective will of ensuring that the society in which we live is made better for all; therefore, the Mass Media should imbed this principle for the achievement of the said objective. The responsibility to protect human right resides first and foremost with the Federal Government and States through public authorities and government agencies. All hands must be on deck, the individuals and international laws have a stake in protecting human rights for national development. The fact that the mass media play important roles in the protection of human rights is well-know to all and sundry, notwithstanding, the mass media in their diversities should work hard towards the attainment of protection of human rights which is the threshold of peace.

5.3 Recommendations

There is need to adequately train government officials and members of security and police forces on how to strictly observe the basic rights of people in the execution of their duties

There is need for Mass Media aggressive educational and enlightenment mobilization campaign on Human rights

Campaign to free all prisoners of conscience, to ensure fair and prompt trials for political prisoners and to stop torture, cruel treatment of prisoners, political killings and disappearance

The Web can be used to gain human right information, express political opinion, and mobilize people against human right violation or to make donation or contribution to oppressed ones.

Education about human right may be incorporated into school curricula

Social structural changes as equality in allocation of resources, even distribution of government services must be prioritized

There is need for the government to create a healthy atmosphere for the operation of mass media especially in the area of human rights.

Absurd movies, immoral play and publications that are capable of introduce or instill negative attitude or adversely condition the psychology of the people should be censored.

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