Impediments to Objectivity and Professionalism in Journalism Practice in Nigeria

The study sought to investigate the impediments to objectivity and professionalism in journalism practice in Nigeria. Library research method was employed to generate data for the study. The study is anchored on social responsibility theory of the press. Findings revealed that news commercialisation, nonpayment of salary and ownership influence are impediments to journalism practice in Nigeria. Finding showed that news commercialisation has relegated the role of the editor to the background, therefore, allowing anything that is paid for to qualify as news. It was also discovered that money has become the criteria for news judgement. The implication of news commercialisation is that, it reduces the credibility of media organisations. Nonpayment of salary was identified as another factor that has negative impact on objectivity and professionalism. This is so because journalists, as a result of nonpayment of salary, have to result to collecting brown envelope (bribe) from news sources. The implication of brown envelope is that it makes the journalist do the bidding of the news source; that is, “he who pays the piper dictates the tune.” It was further revealed that ownership influence is also an impediment to objectivity and professionalism in journalism practice in Nigeria because both public and private media owners have a lot of influence on the media they operate. These owners have used their media organisations to: influence public opinion, .to suppress the truth, denied opposing views access to the media. Finding revealed that public media (government) are mostly used as instruments of propaganda for the government while private media owners are driven by different motives ranging from profit making, agenda setting to winning influence and political and business gain. Based on the findings of this study, it was concluded that objectivity and professionalism will continue to suffer so long as factors like news commercialisation, nonpayment of salary and ownership influence are left unchecked in journalism practice in Nigeria. It was recommended based on this conclusion that,, news commercialisation should not be allowed to continue because, it is a threat to objectivity, professionalism, fairness and balance which are core to journalism practice.