One Jesutega Onokpasa, a lawyer and self-described “APC chieftain,” and Arise TV’s Rufai Oseni engaged in a heated, viral dialogic dispute on October 30. This incident has once again focused discussions about the definition of journalism and who qualifies as a journalist, topics I had previously covered in my columns.
During the conversation, Oseni posed a valid and thoughtful query to Onokpasa regarding the negative effects on common people and the country’s economy of the removal of fuel subsidies. Onokpasa attempted to be vague. He asserted that Tinubu left fuel subsidies in place. Before he went, Buhari did.
Technically speaking, that is correct, but Tinubu’s hastily abrupt and foolish declaration during his inaugural speech that subsidies would end permanently was what caused the price of petrol to instantly and completely unjustifiably spiral out of control and ignited the catastrophic hyperinflationary fire that is still engulfing Nigeria.
Oseni firmly retaliated against Onokpasa’s equivocation, as every journalist devoted to the search for the truth ought to do. Unable to use reason, logic, or proof to support his position, Onokpasa verbally attacked Oseni in an ad hominem attack.
In an attempt to discredit Oseni and his uncomfortable questions, he belittled Oseni as a “boy,” a “badly brought up little boy,” and threatened to leave the interview. He also questioned Oseni’s professional journalistic qualifications.
Take heed, Rufai. “This is not animal psychology,” he declared in a haughty, professional, and ageing manner. It’s the law. You can become a journalist if that’s what you want to do, but you need become an expert first. You are not my match at all.
It was claimed on Friday that Joe Igbokwe, another APC chieftain, declared he would not stop until Oseni is removed from Arise TV. “He’s not a reporter,” According to reports on Facebook, Igbokwe commented, “He has no training in journalism.” “Now, Rufai should be sent to the University of Lagos’ Department of Mass Communication if Arise TV still wants him. The journalism profession is unique. It requires poise, tact, sound and seamless interactions, organisation, discipline, common sense, dedication, civilization, and respect for human dignity.
The fixation on Oseni’s university studies (some claim he studied zoology or animal science, which is why Onokpasa made the ridiculously snide comment that eliminating fuel subsidies wasn’t “animal psychology”) and the attempt to undermine his journalistic qualifications as a result demonstrate a profound lack of understanding of journalism.
Journalism as a practise began centuries before it was formally studied. In 1909, the University of Missouri in the United States conferred the first undergraduate journalism degree in history. However, journalism and journalists existed in the world for centuries prior to 1909. Therefore, it is incredibly foolish to claim that someone isn’t a journalist just because they don’t hold a professional journalism certification.
Despite the fact that journalism is now formally studied everywhere in the globe, because of its fundamental openness, it has rejected licencing as a means of controlling access and leave. Put differently, a person does not need to have studied mass communication or journalism in order to become a journalist.
More than that, however, journalism has three major traditions: advocacy, reporting, and exposé, as I noted in my column from April 15, 2023, headed “Partisan Comparisons of Channel TV’s Seun and Arise TV’s Rufai,” some of which I reproduce in the paragraphs that follow.
The earliest and most established tradition is advocacy. Journalists did not pretend to be “objective” or ideologically neutral in this tradition. There was little news in the modern meaning of the word. Journalism was about opinion, and partisan opinion at that. But take note that at the time, the word “journalism” was nonexistent in the English language.
The emergence of the so-called “penny press” in the United States in the 1830s gave rise to an alternative tradition in American journalism: reporting. Today, most countries of the world still see reporting as the only valid form of journalism.
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Remarkably, the term “journalism” first appeared in the English language in 1833 when a critic of a French book about journalism named Du journalisme translated the word journalisme to “journalism” and said that such “a word was sorely wanted” in the English language.
The reporting tradition places a high value on gathering information, reporting the world as reporters see it, gradually identifying the “best attainable version of the truth” through continuous reporting, and documenting the opinions and viewpoints of sources other than the reporters. That’s when the idea of “objectivity” in journalism first emerged. It coincided with the development and codification of the scientific method—known in social science academia as positivism.
The reporting tradition’s journalists “professionalised” journalism by adopting the nineteenth-century “scientific” rhetoric, which materialised as the idea of “objective journalism,” an impractical concept that journalists have since given up in favour of justice, objectivity, and balance.
In an effort to advance the professionalisation of the industry, American institutions started to offer a degree in journalism during the early 1900s. However, in the history of journalism, not only has journalism education been relatively new, but it has also never been considered a disqualifier because such an approach would go against the fundamental openness of journalism.
The third tradition of journalism is the investigative or exposé tradition, which aims to change society rather than just inform it. Similar to advocacy journalism, it makes no pretence of objectivity or neutrality. Guerrilla journalism is driven by “partisan objectivity in defence of the truth,” as former Minister of Youth and Sports Sunday Dare described it when discussing the tactics he and his colleagues used in the 1990s.
These customs have merged and overlapped over time. News and opinions are kept apart in a lot of traditional media outlets. Opinions are reflected in editorials and columns, whereas factual reporting constitutes news. Put differently, advocates who market their opinions—even those that are biased—are journalists.
In the history of journalism, there has never been a demand for viewpoints to be “objective.” “Objective opinion” is actually a ridiculous oxymoron. It is not an opinion if it is objective, that is, unaffected by bias, feelings, or other human dispositions. Opinions are never neutral. Facts alone can. Opinions are inherently personal and unique.
Having strong opinions does not make one less of a journalist. Before the reporting tradition emerged fewer than 200 years ago, that was the first form of journalism that the world was familiar with.
Furthermore, a new tradition in broadcast journalism has evolved in the US and spread throughout the world: the popularisation and lionisation of news anchors, as well as the use of their star power to market news. Rufai Oseni is a highly valued employee that Nduka Obaigbena would be foolish to terminate based on the audible discomfort that APC chieftains and government officials display when they confront him.
Furthermore, as I noted when Femi Fani-Kayode lost it over a Daily Trust reporter’s questioning of who was “bankrolling” his tour of PDP states, it is a valuable journalistic skill to raise a politician’s ire and stoke their passions.
This is the reason why: When reporters make politicians lose their cool, that’s when they divulge the most newsworthy facts. They are forced to change from their rehearsed, predictable, scripted, and frequently bold and monotonous acts due to a loss of emotional control. More than most experienced journalists, Oseni does a better job at it.
Like any other reputable journalism instructor, I train my students to ask sharp questions of politicians that have the power to make them lose their cool and unintentionally reveal the truth when they are having a meltdown, as demonstrated by Onokpasa’s exaggerated actions.
Astute lawmakers understand this. They deftly handle “embarrassing” queries under duress and calm down hostile reporters with humility, grace, and tenderness, refusing to let helpless rage paralyse them.
Lastly, why was Onokpasa fixated with Oseni’s age as opposed to his own? As I previously mentioned, one of Nigeria’s persistently heavy cultural burdens is the country’s hopeless hold on regressive reverse ageism—the notion that authority should only be bestowed upon those who are elderly rather than those who are young or knowledgeable.
Everyone who is older than the next believes that he has some sort of advantage over someone who is younger simply by virtue of his age.
In this culture of reverse ageism, emotional and intellectual age are irrelevant. As a result, even emotionally immature and cognitively devoid idiots trapped in adult bodies believe they are better than biologically younger but intellectually superior people simply because of the coincidence of their birth year.
However, if you are older than someone, that person is also older than someone else, and you are older than someone else. It is a never-ending spectrum.
Age is only a source of pride for lowbrow, backward people who use it as an excuse to discredit reasonable criticism that they are unable to overcome intellectually. Give Oseni some air!
Farooq Kperogi is a well-known Nigerian newspaper columnist and journalism professor located in the United States.
