There is no profession without professional ethics/etiquette. Ethics refers to externalized/spelled out principles of rights and wrongs in human dealings. Ethics comes from morals, but the latter refers to the internalized principles. Wherever humans are found interacting and interrelating with a view to actualizing a definite goal, there is need for etiquette (professional ethics). Spelled out rules and regulations guiding human activities guard against the unacceptable. Professional ethics is the bulwark against unprofessional conducts that have the potency of scuttling the project.
The Punch Newspaper is a media outft which job it is to timeously disseminate correct information to the public. As a media outfit, the supposed job of a national tabloid like the Punch Newspaper is to inform and arm the public, since the misinformed and uninformed are DEFORMED. The mass media, especially the print media, is always faced with two challenges: time and speed. Newspapers, as folded sheets that propagate pieces of information and newsbits, work hard to outsell one another, and time and accuracy are necessary ingredients. It makes one wonder why the Punch Newspaper, a grey head in the newspaper business in Nigeria, one with continental and global recognition, could condescend to the level of unforced falsehood.
The Punch Newspaper's indulgence in deliberate falsehood vis-a-vis Director Nnamdi Kanu's swelling popularity, is a major comedown on reportage and professionalism in Nigeria. One wonders whether where a seeming professional behaves unprofessionally, it is not a misnomer for one to continue to PROFESSIONALIZE such despicable UNPROFESSIONAL. A deliberate twist, such as the specious report concerning Mazi Kanu's visit to an Anambra hegemony, typifies media filth and conduces to LIBEL actionable in Court. Of course, The Punch Newspaper should thank its stars that this unethical practice was meted out to a revolutional institution that rejects everything ascribed to the suppressive and oppressive enclave called Nigeria, with its attendant judiciary. This libel case would have been a stintillating legal gymnastics, in pursuit of a huge financial burden as SPECIAL and GENERAL DAMAGES. I find it most baffling that an overrated professional tabloid could join the bandwagon in its bid to court the powers that be. Partisanship in reportage is a messy thing, indeed. The Punch Newspaper is, inarguably, a fifth columnist; a media representative of the oppressive proclivities of a retrogressive political class in Nigeria. How shameful!
THE PUNCH NEWSPAPER: YESTERDAY'S READERS' DIGEST, TODAY'S GROUNDNUT SELLERS' PAPER
The Punch Newspaper, having failed to confine its media activities to the borders of global reportage and news dissemination, has lost its pride of place. Telling the world that Director Nnamdi Kanu was pursued and rejected by his own people in contradistinction to his towering popularity and wide acceptability, not just to his people, but also to the globe, is a shot wide off the target. This twisted account of abvious reality is a sign that the Punch Newspaper is a gloried paper for groundnut sellers. I recall the sound emanating from tensioned rubber that strikes wood. Yes, that is how we get notified of the presence of itinerant groundnut sellers in Port Harcourt.
One of the useful things to these groundnut hawkers is newspaper. Yes, these sellers scavenge for used papers the same way scrap contractors rummage for scraps. The Punch Newspaper, having failed to meet the minimum prerequisite for news reporting, should be readily available for groundnut selling. This paper that thrives in falsehood cannot be a readers' digest, for no one wants to spend his precious time reading screeds. Other uses of the Punch Newspaper are smoked fish wraps, table tops, and latrine baskets. I urge all Biafrans and well meaning Nigerians to, henceforth, treat the Punch Newspaper with the levity it deserves by boycotting it until it tenders unreserved apology to Director Nnamdi Kanu and the IPOB. Nigeria, it is obvious, falls short of the minimum standard that encourages the lives of caged lower animals. A government that sponsors falsehood in its bid to tame the luxuriating revolution is pathetic, to say the least. Nigeria and the Punch Newspaper ought to have known that impugning Director Kanu and the IPOB shows that Nigeria needs serious overhauling, not the botched and speedily killed restructuring. I have seen zoos. Nigeria is not just one, she is the worst of zoos.
May the gory days of Nigeria fade out.
May the glorious days of Biafra come quickly.
Russell Idatoru Bluejack is a thinker, revolutionary writer, university tutor, and socio-economic and political analyst that writes from Port Harcourt.