Before you start to ask questions, let me give the details of the meaning of the headline before my neck is severed from the head. I must admit, I am not a native speaker of Yoruba. The above simply means: Where are these press boys? I decided to use it deliberately as a result of a discussion which came up a couple of years ago on what recently took place between Femi Fani Kayode and Eyo Charles of the Daily Trust.

Years ago, while serving as chairman, Nigeria Union of Journalists, Plateau State Council; an incident had taken place in which some of our members were disparaged in the course of carrying out an assignment. That incident didn’t go down well with us; as we kicked and told those who cared to listen that we were no body’s boys.

Reporters get invited to functions often times for various reasons; while it is true that some have ended on happy notes; a number of issues may terminate the briefing. Sadly, the character  of the story can be imputed from how a reporter is treated during the briefings.

Those who do not respect journalists have their reasons. The Nigerian journalists are not saints; they have their challenges as well as short comings. If they exhibit them in the course of their duty, they do so because they too can make mistakes. In the course of practice, I have seen reporters go on assignments and are quickly labeled: ‘Hungry’, ‘they have come to eat’ and such unprintable names that may reduce their stations to nothing. Reporters don’t need to be fed with angles to stories, if the doors are closed to a reporter’s probing; there are a hundred ways that a rat could escape from a hole if cornered.

In these parts, whether the reporter is treated shabbily has been as a result of how Nigerians generally perceive their work. If an organizer of any event thinks reporters do not deserve some modicum of respect for what they do, the tendency to come to the event with a blotted ego may not be ruled out.

Some press briefings have ended on a rancorous note, no thanks to the organizers and or how reporters behave at the venue.

If the organizer has respect for the profession and its practitioners, he will be circumspect. Some of the organizers have assumptions already conscripted in their minds; and always assume reporters should be given the prerogative or even suggest how they must think and ask questions; but hardly realizing ‘journalists don’t have constituencies’.

Truth, as has been pointed elsewhere, ‘a journalist is always after what is hidden. He doesn’t care about all the peripheral points on your paper (that you have jotted or may have wanted to share during the press briefing). And, for him, to get those hidden points, he must cast you down to be modest in speech, away from your predictions.

‘A good lawyer does that too’. It is surprising Fani Kayode doesn’t know that with all his bragging as a lawyer. He was even lucky to meet with that gentle reporter’. He should have been reminded since August 20, 2020 when the incident took place that his ‘heavy’ knees were on the neck of the Daily Trust reporter which could not allow him breath properly.

Most times, people are not able to accept or even take half of the doses of the pills they give to others. In this circumstance, such people are ‘always good advocates for’ themselves ‘and poor judges of others’. Have we not seen situations in which Femi Fani Kayode has harangued those not on the same page about certain issues?

It got me worried that the reporters sat as he berated their colleague during the briefing. None of them showed any sign that he was insulting all. The condemnations that have come in the wake of the altercations are enough to send a lesson to reporters as well as those who think reporters are toys that can be used to service them. This development cannot be anything but ‘repulsive and unacceptable since there was nothing wrong with Journalist Eyo Charles wanting to know if the tour was an independent initiative or a sponsored one’.

Journalists all over the world as we know and are being reminded are ‘saddled with the constitutional obligation of monitoring governance and holding the government accountable to the people should not be subjected to harassment in the course of duty. The former Minister had the option of not answering the question and the abuses were totally out of place in the context of the event’.

Now we know better, he has a ‘short fuse’ and does not suffer to understand others easily. He chose to disrespect the Daily Trust reporter; he didn’t expect anyone would probe the tour of facilities he is said to have embarked to Cross River State. In the rollercoaster, we would not be wrong to insist that Kayode deserves to buy ‘a long fuse for himself, instead of the present short fuse FFK must remove his big knee from the small neck of that Daily Trust journalist as the latter cannot breathe.’ 

Journalism is everything combined. If there is anyone who has always thought it is job for charlatans, such a person has not been involved in the trade-at best, he could have just started. It is no longer news that journalists the world over have been subjected to all manners of ill-treatments. Unfortunately, a number have had their lives snuffed out. It is true; there is no profession that does not have hazards associated with.

If the statistics are taken, you can be sure that the details will be scary as they could be able to ward off intending candidates who would have made a foray into it to change the society. This basically is the work of the reporter; anything other than this, the person would have ventured into a different vocation. Such a person should be told in the language he understands to look elsewhere; perhaps his livelihood may be somewhere.

Farooq Kperogi in more ways than one summed up the feelings of many reporters: ‘Rude question? Well, there’s no such thing as a “rude question” in journalism. A Chicago journalist and humorist by the name of Finley Peter Dunne once said, more than a century ago, that, “the job of the newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” In other words, journalists have no obligation to comfort the comfortable. Their duty is to afflict the comfortable or, if you like, to be “rude” to the comfortable.

‘Asking questions that get a politician’s dander up, that inflame a politician’s passions, is a prized skill in journalism. Here’s why: Politicians reveal the most headline-worthy information when reporters cause them to lose control of their emotions. Loss of emotional control forces them to depart from their scripted, predictable, choreographed, and often mendacious and boring performances.

‘Journalists who think the Daily Trust reporter’s question to Fani-Kayode was “rude” and worthy of censure should go look for another job. They’d do well as publicists. 

‘Malcolm Muggeridge once said, “News is anything anybody wants to suppress; everything else is public relations.” Many Nigerian “journalists” are actually public relations practitioners polluting a noble craft. 

‘Smart politicians know this. Instead of allowing themselves to be immobilized by impotent anger, they respond to high-pressure, “embarrassing” questions with poise, and disarm adversarial reporters with humility, grace, and gentleness’.

And now Tunde Rahman’s view: ‘Now, my take on what happened! Our journalists don’t stand up for anything again, not even the ethics of their profession or their integrity if they have any. All the guys there should have risen in unison to condemn the bully. The reporter too allowed himself to be cowed to say sorry because he has not done any wrong. We should demand more from our reporters. But the journalism profession is endangered. The values are down. The journalists there must be blaming the Trust guy for spoiling their day because FFK may not drop again. We must all condemn FFK for his show of shame, intolerance and assault. But that’s him for you. I congratulate the Trust for standing by their reporter. We must all rise to nail FFK’.