Media academics and practitioners need to sit down, revisit and thoroughly and contextually debate this issue of media freedom because even in advanced democracies, you don’t get absolute media libertarianism.
Penal measures are necessary to make journalism more responsible and protect people and the institutions of leadership against the political interests often represented by the media.
The media is not always right, which is why fake news and hate contents are now prevalent. So let’s not be too quick to consider NBC’s action as an infringement on media freedom. FREEDOM should actually mean the freedom for you to know that you are not free, but that your words and actions matter to the rights and well being of others.
- Ozohu, PhD, lectures at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State.
