NEUTRALITY, PROFESSIONALISM AND ELECTION SECURITY IN DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE  

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1. Setting the Scene: Preamble

I am very confident that my audience here today is made up of people who are knowledgeable about much (most likely all) of what I will say in this presentation. Consequently, this will make this presentation brief and pleasurable for me.

**Although the topic of this presentation is ‘general’ in nature, I will be speaking on it from a specific media perspective as it relates to, or concerns, the Journalism profession.

1.2. Clarification: Democracy

We are all familiar with the commonplace description of ‘Democracy’ as “government of the people by the people, and for the people.” And because all the people cannot govern, a few member of the society are elected to govern on behalf of all the people. This is why election is very crucial/fundamental and indispensable in a democratic society.

1.3. Contextualization: Role of the Press/Media in Democracy

Given the multiplicity of its roles in any democracy, the Press has been described as “the Oxygen of Democracy”. Considering what oxygen literally means to any living creature, this in essence means that without the Press, or if the Press fails to play its indispensable role in any democratic governance, democracy dies.

2. THE POWER OF THE MEDIA

Pardon me for my apparent lack of modesty in asserting, as I do all the time, that the Media are powerful and have ALWAYS been, and Journalists (particularly Editors) who have the privilege of wielding this power are equally powerful and have Bragging Rights.

The media are particularly powerful at the Information level. With reference to Democratic Governance, modern democratic society cannot function without adequate information on significant societal issues (political, social, economic etc) and events, because the people require adequate information to make responsible and informed decisions. In this Information Age of the 21st century, it has become incontrovertible that no other institution possesses the amazing power that the media have at the information level, as they function as the most powerful tool for the dissemination of information. This incredible power derives from the media’s marvelous ability to gather, process and disseminate with great efficiency the variety, quantity and quality of information required to make democracy function effectively, reaching millions to provide this information simultaneously and with excellent efficiency to the vast, heterogeneous and scattered media audience. There is also the media’s incomparable capacity to raise issues and create awareness on an astounding variety of topics. In addition, the media possess tremendous power and influence in shaping public opinion and perception, as people increasingly depend on the media for news, views, information, enlightenment, education and even guidance on various issues and events. With the advent of social media, the media are now more robust and becoming even more powerful and important in human communication. This power of the media applies to the ‘traditional’ mass media of radio, television and newspapers, as well as the new/social media.

2.1. WIDE VARIETY OF MEDIA POWER

Many other crucial media functions are predicated on the media’s powerful information function, as explained by several theories and theoretical approaches which have argued convincingly that the media are moulders of society and possess the capacity to determine, to varying degrees, how media audiences perceive social reality. Such views have been espoused about the media’s effectiveness in Agenda-setting, Framing, Status-conferral, Gate-keeping, Watch-dog Journalism etc, as underscored by the Cultivation Theory of the media.

2.1.1. Cultivation Theory

The Cultivation Theory argues that persistent exposure to the media message leads to its adoption as a consensual view of society, even when that message is deviant from reality in several key respects. The theory assumes that “the more people are exposed to the mass media, especially television, the more they will come to believe that the real world is like the one they observe…[and thus] higher exposure to television goes with the sort of world view found in the message of television” (McQuail, 1987). This means that the way people perceive issues in society could be determined by the extent to which they, as media audiences, ‘cultivate’ images of society as presented in the media.

Because media audiences are likely to ‘cultivate’ media images and regard them as social reality, Media Professionals could deploy this power of the media to determine the images of reality to be ‘cultivated’ by the electorate during an election in a democratic society.

2.1.2. Agenda-Setting

Through their Agenda-setting power, the media can influence what members of society, as media audiences, think about and consider important. Agenda-setting is the creation of public awareness and concern about salient issues by the news media. This power means that although the media may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, they are stunningly successful in telling people what to think about. The Agenda-setting concept explains the relationship between the emphasis placed by the media on issues and the importance the media audience attributes to those issues. The concept explains the ability of the media to influence the salience or importance of topics on the public agenda through the attention they give to issues. If a news item is covered frequently and prominently in the media, the audience will consider it important. Consequently, public discussions (and ultimately public opinion) tend to follow the headlines because the media can tell people what to think about through their agenda-setting function – by placing specific topics on the media agenda. This position explains why media agenda often determines social agenda and public opinion revolves around media headlines. Public opinion concerns what most people think about a particular issue of public importance. This power of the media could be deployed by Media Professionals to consistently place certain candidates and issues on the media agenda during elections, while ignoring others, thus giving them prominence and ‘promoting’ them over others.

2.1.3. Framing

In media communication, ‘framing’ is closely related to agenda-setting. They are so closely related that ‘framing’ is regarded as an adaptation of agenda-setting. The close relationship can easily be seen in the description of ‘framing’ as “second-level agenda-setting”. That is because framing is a step beyond agenda-setting because while agenda-setting tells us what (the things) to think about, framing tells us how and what to think about those things. The close relationship between framing and agenda-setting can be seen in the statement that “Agenda-setting tells what to think about, but framing tells how to think about the information”; so, framing is also known as second-level agenda setting, and framing influences the mindset (perception) of people and impacts their decision-making on a given topic.

Given the media’s framing power in this regard, the slants given by media professionals to their stories on candidates and issues in any election, through how they frame such candidates and issues, become very important.

2.1.4. Status-Conferral

Agenda-setting goes hand in hand with status-conferral through which the media confer legitimacy and importance on people, issues and events by reporting them – thus making them appear ‘right’ and essential. The media could promote or hinder development in any democratic society in general by the way they perform their status-conferral function. It is common knowledge that in Nigeria this power of the media to confer status and legitimacy on people and issues is often abused, particularly in politics where many political leaders (as well as political issues) on whom media practitioners propagandistically lavish media attention (thus conferring credibility, importance, legitimacy and high status on them) do not deserve such status.

Because the media possess the power to elevate the visibility, status, importance and legitimacy of people and issues by simply reporting them, Media Professionals should be mindful of the way they wield this power. In a democracy, for instance, the media could identify political leaders who are doing well and focus media attention on them in commendation. The reverse could also be the case, as the media deploy the strategy of “naming and shaming” to condemn activities of leaders who are working against the tenets of democracy.

2.1.5. Gate-Keeping

This concept describes the process by which a news item, travelling through a media channel, gains clearance at certain checkpoints along the way. These checkpoints are called ‘gates’; the individuals or organisations which give clearance at the checkpoints are called ‘gatekeepers’, while the process of doing this is called ‘gate-keeping’. Thus, a gatekeeper is an individual or a group of persons that controls the travel of news items in a communication channel. A gatekeeper is “any person or formally organised group directly involved in relaying or transferring information from one individual to another through a mass medium” (Bittner, 1989). Gatekeeping involves selecting some information for consideration while leaving others out. Given who they are and what they do in the process of mass communication, gate-keepers as Journalists have enormous power to determine the nature and flow of certain kinds of information. For instance, a gatekeeper’s choice to focus on a news story tells the public how much weight to give that story. Thus, gate-keeping is similar to the agenda-setting concept.

Consequently, the media could be deployed to promote election security by wielding their gate-keeping power. Editors could do this by opening their ‘gates’ to contents that edify credible election as good for democracy and closing those ‘gates’ to counter-democratic contents.

2.1.6. Media As Watchdog

This is a very crucial role of the media in a democracy where the Press as the ‘Fourth Estate’ is charged with the responsibility of ‘watching’ the government on behalf of the people to check abuses of power and “uphold the responsibility and accountability of the Government to the people” (The Nigerian Constitution, as amended).

3. NEUTRALITY, PROFESSIONALISM AND ELECTION SECURITY: CLARIFICATIONS

3.1. Neutrality

• It is not silence: a newsroom that declines to report documented electoral malpractice, because reporting it might favour one side, has not been neutral, it has been complicit.
• It is not indifference: the journalist who has no stake in whether the election is credible, or not, has mistaken detachment from the outcome for detachment from the process.
• It is not false balance: presenting a verified fact and an unverified denial as equivalent claims does not produce fairness, it produces confusion.

Editors should not be neutral between a free election and a rigged one. They should be neutral only between the legitimate contenders within a free election. This distinction is the crux of the matter, and it should govern every coverage decision made in the period ahead.

Overall, Neutrality connotes:

·       Impartiality

·       Balance

·       Objectivity

·       Not a mouth-piece for any government (or government establishment) or candidate in an election.

3.2. Professionalism

In Journalism, professionalism revolves around sound training which equips Journalists with the skills and specialized knowledge for the job and, above all, adherence to the high ethical values as enshrined in their Codes of Ethics (truth, accuracy, impartiality, balance etc), with Truth as the cardinal journalistic value. Professionalism here denotes adherence to the verifiable standards codified in the Code of Ethics for Nigerian Journalists and, specifically for electoral periods, the Nigerian Media Code of Election Coverage — a self-regulatory instrument revised most recently in 2022 and endorsed by the Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN), the Broadcasting Organisations of Nigeria (BON), the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE), RATTAWU and the Guild of Corporate Online Publishers (GOCOP) (Radio Nigeria Abuja, 2023; ThisDay, 2018). Significantly, professionalism in the Nigerian context cannot be reduced to individual virtue. Where salaries go unpaid for months, ethical exhortation is not a strategy; it is a moral alibi for structural failure. This paper therefore treats professionalism as an economic condition before it is a character trait.

3.3. Election Security

Election security is conventionally defined as the protection of voters, officials, materials and infrastructure from violence and disruption.

However, for the purpose of this discussion, this presentation adopts a deliberately operationalization of ‘security’ of an election the ‘sanctity’ or ‘credibility’ of an election which makes for the ‘acceptability’ of the results of that election. In addition, this discussion also adopts the wider definition of election security which is consistent with the framing by the European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) in which election security includes the physical safety of media practitioners covering the process, without which the transparency that security is meant to protect cannot be verified by anybody (EU EOM, (2023). An election in which ballots are safe but reporters are not, is not a secure election; it is a well-guarded opacity.

4. CONCLUSION: DEPLOYING THE POWER OF THE MEDIA BY NEUTRAL MEDIA PROFESSIONALS TO ENSURE ELECTION SECURITY IN DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE

4.1. Theoretical Anchorage/Framework: Social Responsibility Theory

Siebert, Peterson and Schramm’s (1956) Social Responsibility Theory holds that press freedom carries a correlative obligation to serve the public interest. Its relevance here is precise:

4.2. Responsible Editors Deploying Media Power to Achieve Election Neutrality: Questions

As Distinguished Editors and Powerful ‘Controllers’ of Media Content:

• In line with the Agenda-setting role of the Press, what items are you placing on your media agenda which most often becomes the public agenda of what the electorate considers important in relation to the election?

• Going beyond agenda-setting, how are you Framing the candidates, their political parties, the issues and other aspects of the election? How ‘neutral’ are you in reporting the electoral process, as you influence the perception of your audience and ‘instigate’ them on what to think of candidates through your ‘framing’ of them? From whose perspective and for whose ultimate benefit are such issues or candidates reported and framed?

• In terms of the Status-conferal function of the Pres, whom are you wielding this power to confer status, importance and legitimacy on? How deserving of such status or legitimacy are these people, particularly candidates in the election?

• As Editors – the Final and Ultimate Gate-keepers, what issues and persons are you opening your media gates to? Are you deploying your power to open your ‘gates’ to contents that edify credible election to ensure election security as the core of elections in democracy and closing those ‘gates’ to counter-democratic contents?

4.3. Finally: In line with the tenets of the Social Responsibility Theory of the Press, and also as stated in the Nigerian Constitution (as amended) as the reason for freedom of the Press, that the Press should be free from government control in order to serve as ‘Watchdogs’, particularly on people in government and those aspiring to be in government (such as candidates in an election) in order to discharge its ethical duty to serve the public interest, how effectively are you performing this watchdog functions?

• Like a trustworthy watchdog faithfully watching over its owner’s house, do you bark when democracy is threatened is in danger, or even bite when this danger increases?

• Or are you a lapdog comfortably sitting on the lap of erring government officials and aspiring officials, being fed juicy titbits by such persons? 2