The feeble economics of Nigerian journalism

Globally, journalism operates in three markets.

• Market 1: PR experts and sources trade news to journalists in exchange for public attention.
• Market 2: Journalists trade news and information to their audiences in exchange for money and their time and attention.
• Market 3: Journalists (or media houses) trade the time and attention of their audiences to advertisers in exchange for money.

Source: Stephan Russ-Mohl’s The Economics of Journalism and the Challenge to Improve Journalism Quality (2006).

Market 3 is how journalistic platforms make most of their money. In an ideal Market 3, there is enough room for a variety of journalists and advertisers to transact, there is sufficient economic growth on both sides to preserve the balance of the relationship, and there is minimal interference from political figures. But Nigeria is far from being an ideal market. Here, the relationship between advertisers and journalists is skewed in favour of the advertisers, the market for journalism doesn’t seem to have grown much over the past decade or two, Nigeria’s economy is anything but great and, to a large extent, proximity to political power influences business and economic success.

It follows that journalists cannot do good journalism if they are unsure whether their employer will pay at the end of the month. They cannot do good journalism if the platform they work for is under-funded and, so, they do not get paid well and on time. They cannot do good journalism if their employer consistently neglects their welfare. They cannot do good work if the person who owns the newspaper or TV station where they work has obvious political affiliations and there are stories they just cannot pursue. They cannot do good work if their government treats transparency like a plague.

In some cases, journalists are owed financial benefits for months and even years. An example is that of Peter Ibe, a former editor at ThisDay. In 2011, he sued the publisher for withholding his salary and other entitlements, among other things, for many months. He also presented to the court how he had served as bureau chief of the newspaper in South Africa for 19 months and, during that time, the company did not provide his accommodation. Mr Ibe further asked that the court “order the Economic and Financial Crime Commission, the Press Council of Nigeria and the Federal Inland Revenue Service to investigate the defendants." In 2015, he was awarded N1 million in damages by the National Industrial Court in Abuja. His situation is not unusual.

It is common for employers to owe journalists salaries while expecting maximum productivity from them. It is also common for publishers to withhold the salaries of their reporters with the expectation that their income would come from “brown envelopes” or billing PR personnel for writing about their clients. The idea is that by hiring them, the publisher has given said journalist a platform they can then leverage to enrich themselves in creative ways while the bulk of the platform’s revenue from advertising and sales goes into the publisher’s pocket.

Not much has changed over the years. Nigeria is not more prosperous today than it was some years ago, so there’s even less money in journalism now. Nigeria is not more accommodating to journalists today than it was some years ago. The Nigerian government is not more transparent today than it was some years ago, there is still a lot of opaqueness. It is difficult to do good journalism in Nigeria because the environment is just not designed for that.

The conversation about the cost of journalism and the business models that support it is one worth having with more intensity and far greater excogitation than we have displayed so far. It is a conversation worth pouring millions of dollars into. If for no other reason, for the good of the people that journalism serves and for the future of a profession that must exist to keep society in check.

This post is culled from "The Cost of Good Journalism in Nigeria". To read the full article, please click here.