Many many years ago I watched a fictional movie on an investigative reporter for the BBC who was following up on leads to solving a crime and this so appealed to me for anything to do with investigation appealed to me then. The days of the Cold War didn’t help either, we were struck by the romantic portrayal of the CIA, KGB, and Mi5 that we read in novels or watched in the movies. There was something about the Secret Service and espionage that was appealing to my teenage mind. My peers were excelling in the subjects Asian kids are supposed to, while I was busy reading other stuff. From global civilizations to fiction and non-fiction. These were definitely more interesting than Newton’s laws or Faraday's principles. Octavius (Augustus Ceaser) and Genghis Khan made more sense to me. Besides I was politically active from my Form 1 till I left the university.
Growing up in the backwaters of the African continent where the postal service was a definition of snail mail, the fax was nonexistent and the analog phone lines were erratic didn’t help my cause either. Pre-internet days didn’t allow us the luxury of information on how to and so my desperate letter to Langley asking to join wasn’t answered.
The next best option and this came several years later was to head off to Maiduguri and do some “investigative” studying….. Mass Communication ( PR, Communication, and Journalism). And here we were taught that we're the fourth estate of the realm. We were taught to be factual despite being opinionated. We questioned everything. Today, through our network we have gotten so much information often witnessing things either personally or through first-hand sources.
Some of my Investigative stories might have broken monopolies/ crimes or illicit businesses through my reportage backed up with evidence in the few instances I practiced (mostly as an IT student). My idealism had turned me into a fearless being. However, after the university, other professions chose me by sheer chance as a result of the 1999 political campaign, but that knack for anything investigative has never quite left. But I have never regretted that decision- completely.
Today, it’s a whole new ball game. The internet age has brought in too much information and much of it is used to propagate ideology which has turned human beings into “donkeys”. The propaganda blitz has turned the less mortal into an unquestioning buffoon. Hordes of people are being systematically brainwashed. Harold Laswell coined it in the late 1920s, the Nazis used this very effectively and it was called the “Hypodermic Needle Theory” (Bullet theory)- the direct and strategic infusion of a message into an individual. Or graphically put- The media gun shoots a media message into the head of the viewer/listener. Today people absorb the message without question, especially if the message appeals to their inner prejudices. And this cuts across the board. From highly educated folks to the almajiri on the street. No one QUESTIONS the message especially if it comes from religious or political leaders who too are a creation of the media. While these opinion leaders can be blamed, I equally blame the do-not-question attitude of the educated buffoons' that follow them to death.
While I shun these half-witted wannabe untrained “mass communicators”, I applaud those pressmen who continue to face the bullet of the rebels, the insurgents, and even their own governments to bring to us the truth on man’s inhumanity to man in their drive to hold our leaders accountable- the fourth estate of the realm. Happy Press Freedom Day.
