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00:00Welcome to Guardian Talks. I'm Temitaya Olumofere. We are asking today, how free is the press in
00:06Nigeria and what are the challenges journalists encounter in telling the truth? Joining us in
00:12the studio to analyze all of this together is Temitope Olaya. He's finally called Templar.
00:19He's Guardian News Editor. Stick it out.
00:30Welcome to Guardian Talks. Thank you. Great having you again. Okay, so many people say
00:37press freedom is not fully respected in Nigeria. Do you think journalists in Nigeria are truly free
00:44to do their jobs? The question is, it's not one way in the sense that while I agree that
00:58there has been some level of abuse from many people who claim to be journalists because
01:08in this age, because of the proliferation of citizens journalism, bloggers, those who do
01:19wire service and content creation, it has now drawn a thin line between those who must produce
01:29for content and those who are actually doing regionalism. So because of the abuse in that
01:35space, there's been some form of clampdown and some form of SOS over the preponderance of fake news.
01:49So if you put them in the basket, press freedom, their challenges, their attempts to stifle the expression
02:02of free press. Same way, the harm of fake news is also distorting the worldview of what journalism
02:14should do in a democracy. And the essence of that is because in democracy, the media is the fourth
02:26estate of the realm. What separates dictatorship from democracy is a viral press. And when you have
02:34a challenged media, then you are having a quasi-democracy because it seems the government is not questioned. It seems
02:46whatever representative of people are doing are not checked. The structures of checks and balances in democracy, which you have the judiciary and the legislature,
03:00it seems they have been in bed with each other. So there's no difference. We seem to see no difference between the executive, the judiciary, and the legislature.
03:12So when you now have the media, which is supposed to check and play the policeman, be the guardian, be the custodian of truth and facts, now also challenged. And you now have a solution whereby there seems to be no difference between reporting, journalism, a free press, a viral press, and a government
03:40and a government megaphone. So you now have like, what is happening here, gentlemen? Can we hold on? Are we just
03:52regarding government press releases? Or are we actually checking the government?
03:56So what you're trying to say now is that it's not that the press is really free some sort. A little free, but not too free.
04:04Yeah. So in the freedom of it, now you have seen government come up with several measures in the attempt to checkmate the abuse of freedom, which was what I was talking about with the preponderance of fake news.
04:22They are now beginning to extend beyond that tax to now go into actually stifling of the press.
04:34Right.
04:35So you say, okay, you want to, from attacking fake news, it's now extending the censorship of the media, all in the name of not allowing propagandists to overwhelm governance and then lead to other forms of social unrest in society.
05:04So that line is now where the media is now under threat. Because when you have media censorship and you have government, or the structure of government and governance actually having a stake in both what the media presents and what the media presents.
05:33And what the media tries to uncover. Then what you have at the end of the day is those who don't fall in line have been hunted. And you now have a resort to guerrilla journalism, whereby people don't go underground. And the danger of that is some will go underground for different reasons.
06:01Some will go underground. For safety. For safety. While some will go underground to further peddle fake news. Which is what the government, I've been sure, is trying to avoid.
06:13Right. Using the media to fund the embers of discord and dissidentity and disintegration of the federation.
06:22So the war really, or the battle should actually be against people peddling fake news.
06:27Exactly. Not the facts out there. I mean, not disseminating facts.
06:33Yeah, you can disseminate facts. But because the bracket which is media has been, it's been a whole commerce affair. So you can't really distinguish who actually is a journalist and who is just a content creator.
06:52Right. Or who is just a blogger.
06:53Right.
06:54You know, so when the government is responding, they are responding to everybody.
06:57Right.
06:58Both the journalists.
06:59The ones that are doing it right.
07:00And the ones that are carrying fake news.
07:02Exactly.
07:03Okay. So in the light of that, you know, with the new cyber crime ads, specifically there's a section 24 subsection one, do you think, you know, it was just amended, right?
07:13Yeah.
07:14So do you think that some vague words can still be used to target journalists unfairly in that amended section 24 subsection one of the Cyber Crimes Act?
07:26Very, very true. The Guardian was called out some months back on the basis of a misinterpretation of a story.
07:48Doing the reports on the public's discontent about government policies and tagging it as a call for an invitation for military incursion.
08:05You see, there are two differences. And when the government was reacting to that story, they were using some sentiments or opinion
08:17expressed in the copy, in the story as the basis of why free expression should be curtailed. So you cannot, some aspects of that cyber crime, you know, is something you can't escape.
08:40Because democracy itself is the celebration of free speech, freedom of speech, free media, freedom of expression. And when you now start gatekeeping, now you are taking the responsibility of the media.
09:07The government now wants to be the one who will censor what is right, what is harmful, and what should not be released for mass publication.
09:21So in that regard, that is a clear incursion to press freedom. And like I said, using the attempt to kill a bird, you will not want to cut down the tree. That is the instance of what is happening.
09:41Fine, you may want to target peddlers of fakenews, target those who use the mainstream and online means of mass publication to target individuals and peddle falsehood and lies and all that.
10:03But in the attempt to address that, you are coming head on on the institution. In the sense that now everybody is tagged and everybody is branded and everybody is in one boat.
10:21So whatever is deemed injurious, whatever is deemed as not true. Now there is a difference between when a fact is false and when a fact is...
10:39When a statement is false, there is a difference between when a fact is false and when a statement is a developing event that is not yet confirmed.
10:57Now, the government can say, so, so, so, and so is not true. That so, so, and so is not true at that material time does not mean the information is actually false.
11:10It does mean that the timing is wrong.
11:13Because it is still developing.
11:14Yeah. So if you now say, okay, because of cybercrime hacks, everybody who has run far of what the government defines to be the truth should be head responsible.
11:26That is, that is, that is now, uh, clamping down on the industry. I don't know if you get my point.
11:34Yeah.
11:35So if, um, it's, it's important, um, the, the, let me just use an example. Okay. There was one, let me use two examples.
11:45There was one that happened yesterday. I think a blogger came out to say the president has sacked two or three ministers.
11:55It was denied as outright falsehood. That is on one, on one side. Now there's a difference between that and saying, uh, sources, uh, have, um, confirmed that there is an imminent cabinet reshuffle.
12:12Mm-hmm.
12:13Who and who will be affected? Uh, we don't know yet. Or maybe some names have been predicted to be affected in the cabinet reshuffle.
12:21And the government comes out to say, it's not on the president's plate for now. It's focused on governors. It's not focused on 2027.
12:30Now those two scenarios, the, the, the person who said, so, so, so, and so ministers have been sacked. Attracted for, uh, uh, fake news.
12:40And the one who, by, uh, uh, virtue of some privileged information says the president is pondering to reshuffle the cabinet ahead of 2027.
12:50You know, so those are two scenarios. So, um, you can't, uh, try to pin down the person who actually gave that false, uh, false information about three ministers' sacks.
13:01And use that same law to also pin down the person who, through, uh, privileged information, was able to gather that there, uh, uh, developments to the effects that there might be a cabinet reshuffle.
13:16Because those are two scenarios. You know, so, but now the situation is, what about the government?
13:21The liberals or defines to be its own truth is the truth. There is no alternative facts.
13:30So if you want to go further with your alternative facts, it's either you go underground or you do guerrilla journalism.
13:37But there must always be a way for that news body to checkmate whatever information the government is putting out there.
13:44Yeah, that's why we are fact checkers.
13:47They are, uh, within the institution, there are layers of, um, bodies that, um, address issues of, um, infraction.
13:59Within the, uh, media ethics law. You have, um, institutions like the EUJ, you have institutions like the, uh, the Guild of Editors.
14:10You have the Ombudsman Council. Even the government subscribes to that.
14:14The reports and hearing publication or media house to the Ombudsman. Uh, and you have the, you have the Guild of Editors. Then you have the newspaper's, um, proprietors association of Nigeria.
14:26You know, so, uh, and that is the way to go. You, you, you, you let those institutions do the internal self-cleansing.
14:34You know, but when the government itself is doing that, that is what I meant by incursion to, you know, the, the media.
14:41Okay. So let's look at this year's theme, which has to do with, uh, AI, that's artificial intelligence impact on journalism.
14:50So, um, how is AI changing the media? That's one. And then how could it be a danger to press freedom? Can it be, or can it not be, uh, a danger to press freedom?
15:02First thing first, the impact and the risk.
15:06It's, uh, it's the word around us. Uh, the word keeps changing everyday, and, uh, uh, in this age, if you don't step up, you lose out,
15:20you know, so, uh, it's, it's been slow in coming what the media from this climb has accepted an embrace the AI.
15:29It now depends on if you are looking into individual organizations and maybe forms of the space,
15:42whether it's broadcast, the sprint, it's purely digital, you know.
15:46So every media organization, just like we accepted and transited into the digital space,
15:56we are also embracing AI.
15:59And it's now in the form of at what level?
16:06Some is at individual level, individual practitioners, journalists.
16:11Some is at a corporate level, is at the organization level.
16:15It's organization-led.
16:16Some are individual-led.
16:18You know, so looking at the risk itself, there is nothing.
16:27It's just like this famous advert for the entire company, power without control is dangerous.
16:38You know, so anything that is left on its own without some form of gatekeeping, it is actually the core function of the media.
16:48You know, what you have these days of people complain about of the industry is because there has been some lags and some slowdown in that last leg of the function of the media, which is gatekeeping.
17:03You know, all sorts, you absorb all sorts, but you filter them, what is true, what is accurate, and what is fit for public consumption, and you are let out.
17:16But these days, the filter is really slack, so everything goes garbage in, garbage out, and in that sense, AI can also be used to propagate, to accentuate both the good and the bad.
17:34You know, so if there is responsible use of AI, just as you have mainstream organizations who are responsible to their calling, to their calls, to the ethics of the media profession, AI is good to go.
17:50Well, if the same tool in the hands of those who don't mind to jettison, ethics of the profession, and just all for likes, for clicks, for engagement, the AI will also be used in that way.
18:08So it's a 50-50 thing.
18:11Exactly.
18:12All right.
18:12Thank you so much for your insight.
18:15I mean, we are looking forward to a place where the truth can be told accurately and also hold people accountable for their action.
18:25Thank you for your time, and thank you for the insights you've shared with us on Guardian Talks.
18:29My pleasure.
18:29You've heard it all.
18:30Let's stay truthful and accountable.
18:34Thanks for joining us on Guardian Talks.
18:36I'll see you next time.