daily times

The rise and fall of daily times

Indeed there was a rise, a fall, and another rise of daily times Nigeria. Daily times Nigeria was first started on 6^th June 1925 as the Nigerian Printing & Publishing Company Limited by V. R. Osborne, L. A. Archer, R. Burrow and Adeyemo Alakija among whom all but Alakija represented European interest groups in the Lagos chamber of commerce. The company started printing on June 1, 1926 with the publication title, ‘The Nigerian Daily Times and Ernest okoli as its first editor

The paper soon became a major voice of the nationalist cries but soon the ownership of DTN changed hands in 1935 when it was bought over by Mr. R. B. Paul, a Liverpool businessman but soon, the company ran into problems again - with the advent of the Ziks’ press another nationalist oriented group of papers, the daily times lost much readership but bounced back by 1945 after the world war two when it became vicious in its fit against colonial rule

Despite these setbacks of ownership change, daily times still had very relevant contributions to the Nigerian press; the first privately-owned rotary printing press,  photo-engraving, typesetting and typecasting plants in Nigeria were introduced through daily times when it was bought over by Cecil king in 1947. The daily mirror group also introduced things like short paragraphs and sentences, many illustrations and photos, and human interest stories The paper's circulation rose from 25,000 daily in 1950 to 95,000 in 1959. During the 1950s the Nigerian Daily Times played an important role in the process that led to independence in 1960

Ismail Babatunde José, regarded as the best editor daily times had also introduced a lot of changes which affected the landscape of Nigerian press positively e.g. he raised the bar of qualification for journalists from mere school certificate to advanced level general certificate akinfeleye and okoye (2003) quote José as saying  “when we found the school certificate intakes inadequate, In English language and we raised the minimum entry to higher school certificate or advanced level general certificate of education……..”

In 1963, the gradual transfer of ownership of DTN to Nigerians commenced and by May 30, 1963, the name of the company was changed to The Daily Times of Nigeria Limited (“DTN”). By March 31 1974, following the promulgation of the Nigerian Enterprises Promotion Decree, DTN became a wholly owned Nigerian company.  

On September 1, 1975, the Federal Government of Nigeria through the National Insurance Corporation of Nigeria (NICON) acquired sixty percent (60%) equity holding of DTN. By the 70s, DTN had become household name and a toast of the Nigerian public. It dominated the Nigerian Publishing industry with its newspapers and publications circulating in all major cities and towns in the country including neighbouring West African countries of Ghana and Cameroun. It also had offices in London, New York and East Africa.

It is on record that DTN is the only Nigerian newspaper to attain a 500,000 copy circulation. It was at the peak of its success that the Federal Government in 1977, took over total ownership and control of the company. Though the company prospered for some time, it soon had a bad reputation like most government owned organizations and when its public perception became negative the result was declining business.

In 2004, the Bureau of Public Enterprises under the Obasanjo administration, slated The Daily Times of Nigeria for privatization and Folio Communications Limited acquired 96.5% controlling shares of the Daily Times at the price of One Billion, Two Hundred & Fifty Million Naira.

The falls

The first major blow given to the existence of daily times Nigeria was the government ownership of the paper. At first it promised that the paper will retain its freedom but starting from the government of Olusegun Obasanjo under who daily times was completely taken over, down to the interim government of Abdulsalam Abubakar under which the company workers embarked on an indefinite strike to protest the non-payment of their salaries for five months, there was constant infringement on the rights of not just daily times but also the press in general at that time

Even after it was revived and privatized, the selling process was not properly done and so this has led to endless suites and though there is a daily time and even with a website seemingly functional, the company is yet to recover from the many suites it has encountered and it finally closed down again in 2007 and since then not much has been heard about it

Flaws that led to its falls apart from military/government control

Within itself, the board of daily times was seen as a biased one which gave up professionalism for trivial issues such as nationality, tribe e.t.c. for example name(20..) quotes José as saying that the reason why he(name) wasn’t given much authoritative posts at the time due was due to his nationality as a Cameroonian.

Also, daily times after independence decided to turn itself into a voice for politicians who wanted to rule one sector of the country or the other by all means Chris (2004) lists daily time as one of the once nationalist newspapers that turned into praise instruments for politicians.

Thirdly, during its time under government control, it was used as an instrument to do the bidding of the government Chris (2004) said “both newspapers (Biafran sun and daily times) involved each other to the highest point of propaganda and counter propaganda”.

REFERENCE

chris, o. o. (2004). Nigerian press review Trends and Prospects. portharcort: pen power communications.

The third world must learn to stop crying to the western imperialists who obviously enjoy the information control to release some of the control but it must find its own means  and also become its own source of information

Science and technology and research should be encouraged so that better ways for advancement can be invented for the developing world and by the developing world.  

 

REFERENCES

Asemah, E. (2011). selected mass media themes . jos: Matkol press.

Baran, S.J. (2004). Introduction to Mass Communication: Media Literacy and Culture.

            NewYork: McGrawHill Companies

Bladerson, K. (2011, september 28). new world order for media: says world media summiT. Accessed   

            october 11th, 2011, from resistance radio: www.widesut.co.uk

Carlsson, U. (2004). Quaderns del CAC. Retrieved october 12, 2011, from http://www.cac.cat

Domatob, J. (1994). Coverage of Africa in American Popular Magazines. Issue: A Journal of        Opinion , 26.

Ekeanyanwu, N. (2008). international communication. ota, covenant University press.

MacBride et al. (1981). many voices one world. london: Anchor press ltd. and wm.Brendon and son ltd.

THE NEW WORLD ECONOMIC ORDER as an issue that could better aid the NWICO cause

According to Ekeanyanwu ( 2008)  the new world information communication order arose out of the new world economic order of 1974

The New world economic order is a similar notion to that of NWICO only this time it does not talk of free and balanced flow of information but about creating a level playing ground for all economies of the world 

NWICO AND THE MEDIA TODAY

Till today the NWCO debate has still not had much or any   impact on the information flow between the developed world and the underdeveloped world in fact in the history of Nigerian media at some point, there was decline in the influence of foreign content on indigenous media but at present the indigenous content is totally framed to look like the western culture and were this is not done or not done well as is mostly the case, Nigerians' no longer have to bother about it since there is easy access to foreign media.

what does the future look like for the NWICO Debate

Since NWICO is only a framework, a discussion topic, and clearly does not have the support it needs from the developed and wealthy nations nor is there any hope that the nations who support and need it will ever get the reality that in order to push the idea money is needed or wakeup to money making strategies  there is hardly any lit foreseen at the end of the tunnel for this long overdue cane; it is almost as if it were better if the topic were not raised at all, because all the money spent by these developing nations could have been better spent on investing and actually getting the financial power required to control the flow of news.

Let’s take a cue from china a former third world country and now the emerging best economy in the world – on September 28 2011 (Bladerson, 2011)reports that the top player countries in the world media industry converged in china to discuss on media control, Balderson specifically said -   as we’ve seen increasingly in recent years, the brutal state of China will be presented in much more favorable light. Perhaps they realize it may end up being the only strong economy left in the world and it’s time to buddy up?

Therefore if the developing world is unwilling to row economically in order to get hold of the means of information dissemination, they must as well be willing to drop the NWIO debate as it an already lost battle – the money is the weapon and the developing world as none of it so why send your soldiers to a war were they are bound to die when you could easily train them to make the weapons in the time being and prepare for war  

Conclusion and recommendation

In African tradition, when a child is beaten by his age mate and he goes back home to his parents, he is not petted nor is he given words of encouragement but often, he is thrown out of the house to go back and fight till he wins and then he is encouraged or rewarded. The third world has left the house and gone to the developed world but has refused to fight but is engaging in dialogue and has been at it for far too long.

The developed world may never bulge for the demands of the third world, from the looks of things, they are used to being a monopoly of everything and have always fought to retain that position of top “anything good” in the world and so it might be quite futile for the third world to continue in these endless debates for a free and balanced flow of information. However, all hope is not lost and the third world may still find the light at the end of this dark tunnel if only they sit up to the reality that the key to free flow of information is the ability to propagate it also and the means to propagation of information lies in financial power.

IMBALANCE as an issue that lead to the debate

Imbalance according to Encarta dictionaries is -an unevenness, inequality, or bias existing between two or more people or things, especially in their degree of emphasis, proportions, or function

 According to (Ekeanyanwu, 2008)- imbalance in international communication refers to the unequal flow of mass media messages from the …industrial world to the third …or developing world. This imbalance e says is the reason for the international debate for new world information order.

Imbalance can be measured or assessed in terms of its forms or levels at wic it occurs

The forms of imbalance include:

      Qualitative imbalance – this refers to the image portrayed for Africa in the global media. Most if not all the western owned media are prone to exaerate the crisis, unrest, uner, poverty or any other predicament of the third world while avoiding any good or pleasant report wic may actually be more than the unrests.

Also the western media has fed on the predicament of the third world and as used it to increase positive popularity for the west

      Quantitative imbalance: in this form of imbalance, there is little or no mention of the third world in the so called global media. Only news about industrialized countries fill the top headline and sometimes toward the end of the bulletin (and sometimes in a manner of – o lest we forget) the third world is mention. So by this manner of news reporting the global media is telling the world that the third world is not as important as other parts of the world because the news bulletin is always arranged in order of importance from the most important to the least important and therefore these issues have given rise to the third worlds struggles for a free and balanced flow of news.

  The diagram below by  (Domatob, 1994) illustrates the quantitative and qualitative forms of imbalance in the global media about Africa

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Many theories could be used when studying the struggle for a new world information order but for this study I will be using the cultivation theory.

CULTIVATION THEORY

            This theory according to (Asemah, 2011) was propounded by Gerbner et al in 1976. The theory proposes that television plays an important role in the way people view their world – and in this case western television affects the way Africans view their world in respect to superiority or inferiority to the north and how the north views itself as superior to the south.

Though the theory includes a larger part about violent influence; I will like to focus on just the influence it as or is believed to have over its viewers   

For the proponents of this theory, television viewers do not necessarily verify information gotten from television and so it is whatever they are given that they use to view their world and in relation to  third world citizens, it has been that of how bad these countries are and how good the developed world is and hence potential investors from the north refuse to bring investment to the south and even among the third world countries some are made to believe they are at least better than some other third world countries and they also refuse to initiate business with the lesser third world nations. Therefore, the opportunity for the developing world to ever rise to its feet financially and really take control of the means of media production is reduced.  Also, third world members with potential to develop their nations are carted away in numbers by the same deceit that there is no facility in the third world for their dreams to see the lit of day, and so in another way our resources (human resources) are taken away to develop more ways to deprive the third world of a means to ever rise.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Ekeanyanwu (2008) defines NWICO as

a conceptual framework that tries to address the imbalance and inequalities existing in international communication as well as recommending and proposing a system of international communication where the world as a whole will feel very secure in the emerging or already emerged global village

After attaining political independence, developing countries have been struggling for self reliance in all fields and communication has not been an exception (Nageswar)

The NWICO debate during its tenure raised a lot of dust between the developed world, United States especially and the UNESCO. Hocking (1985) however said this was not the first time such happened, citing the “anti – Israeli resolutions passed at the 18^th general conference in 1974 which led the senate foreign relations committee to suspend contributions to UNESCO”s budget for 1975 -1976” as an example of such behavior or attempt by the developed world to runcate the activities of UNESCO that did not favor them.

(savage, 1987) sees the struggle for free flow as one of political relevance that may infringe on the sovereignty of states and brings to mind the genuine fears of governments about the possible invasion of its citizens with foreign propaganda stating that communist states are well known in the practice of isolating its citizens from “pernicious propaganda”

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

HISTORICAL BACKROUND

The popular Struggle for a free flow of information and equal control of the world media known as the- new world information and communication order- (a term coined during debates over third world misrepresentation in the `international media in the 1970s and popularized by the MacBride commission) started in 1973 with the meeting of non–aligned nations in Algiers – although arguably the official date of the struggle is 1980 when the MacBride report was first published.  

Ulla Carlson (2004) gives this view of what the NWICO debate stands for

The demand for a new international information order was an outgrowth of third-world resentment of the imbalances in international news flows, as summarized in the phrase, 'one-way-flow'; the lack of respect for third-world peoples' cultural identity that such imbalances reflected, the monopoly positions of transnational communication corporations, which were perceived as a threat to the countries' national independence; and the inequitable distribution of communication resources in the world.

As at 1973, the Struggle though visible was only at a conceptualization stage, the developing countries had realized there was something like  imbalance in the flow of news between the developing world and the developed world but could not prove its existence due to lack of evidence. Soon and especially between 1976 and 1979, there was accumulation of evidence through the MacBride commission of the united nations educational scientific and cultural organization (UNESCO) which was setup to study communication problems. One very important source of evidence was the formulated 'new order' plan by Tunisia's Information minister Mustapha Masmoudi titled “mass media declaration” in 1978.

N,B,  As all this happened we must not forget that this was still during the period of the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union and according to (Carlsson, 2004) “The Cold War defined the front lines in this period, but a new “front” was also emerging — that between North and South”.

 By 1980 when the MacBride report was published under the title “many voices one world”, the developed world was totally against the idea that the underdeveloped or developing world should ever want to have an equal share of the quantity and quality of news reported in the developed world or have an undistorted and fair report of events in the south. UNESCO was accused of being an enemy tote free press and to frustrate the debate, Britain and America walked out of UNESCO lead by the then president of the United States of America – Ronald Regain. Subsequently the report was scrapped out of UNESCO before the return of America and Britain in 2003 and 1996 respectively

Operational definitions

South, third world, underdeveloped countries: these words or phrases are used interchangeably in this essay to mean the countries that are adversely affected by the imbalance in the global media 

According to

West, North, developed countries: these are also used interchangeably as a cover term to refer to the technologically advanced countries that coined the phrase third world, have participated in and are still involved in the practice of misinforming the third world and its own citizens about the third world countries.