"Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep" --- Romans 12:15 THE HOLY BIBLE
knew this day would eventually come. I predicted it. I waited for it, and it has arrived. The Punch Newspapers of Nigeria characteristically have now blazed the trail. It is left for the rest of the newspapers to take a cue. The New York Daily News blazed similar trail in the United States in the 18th century warning the anti-colonial press to hang together or perish separately. Many of the world's newspapers are bleeding profusely, although few editors are willing to admit this internal newsroom hemorrhage. Just as the anti-colonial press in America was being strangled by the British colonialists and gasping for breath, the oppressors now are the new technological barracudas of the New Age: the Internet and the World Wide Web. As a product of the Old Media and a child of the New Media, I knew that something must and would eventually give way in this world of bits, bytes, and news diffusion. News and information are not meant to be free and should not be free. In the current cacophony of ambidextrous journalism, I shudder about quality and ethics. In my grad school at the University of South Florida a few years ago, this issue dominated most of our discussions at the School of Journalism and Media Studies. We were concerned about what constituted proper Journalism in the New Media World. Yours sincerely harped so much on this that the department soon created what is called "That's Not Journalism" Award and I became the first recipient.
I argued that good and responsible journalism is like pornography, which you can identify when you see it. It can't be lost even in the World Wide Web suffused with charlatan, half-baked news producers and junk news purveyors which becloud every professional's judgment. Anyone, just anyone who has access to cyberspace anywhere in the world can now feed us with news on the altar of quality and ethics of course. The preponderant of our grad seminar discussions on the New Media at USF centered primarily on the future of the print. Will the new kid on the block known as the Internet displace the grand old daddy of the news? Will the print media go the way of Dionysius? Who will swallow who: print veterans or cyber newbies? In those discussions, I maintained a consistent stand; the New Media is a flicker in the pan. When the temporary insanity is done with, we shall all return to normalcy. Ambidextrous Journalism cannot survive, and Nature is yet to create a space for hermaphrodites. As we saw in an experiment earlier on, a group of innovators decided to try their hands on something new: a car that is both a motor-car and a boat or "car-boat" they called it. You can ride it on highways but when you feel like; you can switch it on and turn it into a boat to compete with a yacht. The "breakthrough" was announced with fanfare. Boat owners and car dealers converged at the maiden presentation. The inventors high-fived each other and thought they would enter into the pantheons of great inventors. But the excitement soon fizzled out. Humans by nature loathe contradictions and ambivalence. People want to ride motor cars on the road and highways. Boaters want to roar their boats in lakes and enjoy their yachts at sea. They do not want "motor car-boats." The idea was shelved, investors weren't interested in "car-boats" and everything went kaput.
The Punch Newspapers of Nigeria, founded by Chief Olu Aboderin (1934-1984) was established as a national treasure in 1973 and the newspapers have lived up to the vision of the founding father.
In the late 1990s and the early Aughties, the dot.com took the world by storm and with a bang for good measure. It was like everyone had found the Eureka! Everyone, just about everyone gravitated toward the cyber world. AOL, Time Warner, CNN, and the big players went online. The marriage between Ted Turner's CNN and AOL, we were told, was ordained; a- $164 billion media merger, the first ever largest media merger and conglomerate and probably the last in media history. AOL was raking in about $200 million a day and investors wanted a slice of the cyber pie. Steve Case became the world's media Rasputin. But it did not last. You know the rest. In 2003, my New Media teacher, Prof Edgar Huang, and I discussed looking at the future of the New Media. We brought in Prof Karen Dunlap of the Poynter Media Institute, St. Petersburg, Florida and my grad colleague, Lisa Rademakers together to conduct research that would examine the impact of the Internet on the Old Media. We thought media convergence was the future, but we discovered it wasn't. That seminal work became the most cited referenced journal article in five years, according to the Sage Publications Group USA (https://con.sagepub.com/reports/most-cited). We zeroed in on the Tribune Media Group using the experimental ambidextrous journalism going on at that time at the Tampa Tribune Newspapers and their sister television station at the News Center as analyses. Top editors at the new experiment which was then at its infancy seemed upbeat of a media marriage that would enrich the noble profession of journalism. In one of my theses out of many master's degrees, I went to Sarasota Herald-Tribune Newspapers to examine the same media cohabitation. In all these media experiments, there were no prenups, for the married partners firmly believed they would remain together ever happily thereafter. Those research works paved the way for further research on the impact of the New Media on the Old Media. There was excitement buzz in many newsrooms and journalism schools across North America as the Tribune Group was poised to make history. But just as AOL and CNN went their separate ways, and the inventors of "motor car-boats" disbanded, the excitement of media convergence soon petered out. I do not read much of it in academic journals these days.
The jury is not yet out on who will supplant or outlive the other but as sanity returns to the news world and editors go back to the drawing board, The Punch Newspapers of Nigeria have blazed another trail in defining the future of the mass media. I woke up to see these copyright cautions on its website: " ©Copyright: All rights reserved. This material, and other digital content on this website, may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without prior express written permission from Punch Contact: [email protected]." Finally, and at last! The past ten years have been very tumultuous for the press. News stories are stolen barefacedly by Internet news-thieves without regard for copyright laws. Kids who should go back to school to learn the primary definition of news began to call themselves editors. The junk you read in many of these so-called news websites make the heart bleed and make one nearly throw up. Suddenly everyone became editors. You wonder when this madness will stop. The primary producers of news, the reporters and correspondents paid to cover news and the primary gate-keepers in the newsrooms must have watched helplessly and aghast as their original works are being stolen and pirated by Internet hackers. -I won't call them journalists. When you commit intellectual treason which is what plagiarism is about, you lack honor and moral authority to inform others. Yours truly was tempted to join in this cacophonous madness of online news magazine when I floated the US-African Pointblank News in 2010. We hired reporters and correspondents in Japan, Germany, South Africa, Italy, and Nigeria, including many places- some of them we still owe- but we had to suspend publication, because candidly it is madness and professional seppuku to give news and information for free. I wasn't comfortable with this silly idea that news must be provided free. If that should be the case, let's close all our colleges and universities. Lawyers and medical doctors should provide their services gratis. We should ask all our lawmakers and public officials to go home if they insist on being paid.
Any news that is given free is no news. What The Punch has just done in Nigeria is to remind us that in a quality democracy, the Fourth Estate of the Realm cannot do its proper job if it doesn't cost the citizens something. Eternal vigilance is the price of democracy, but if such democracy is to endure, it must be paid for, either in cash or in kind. Google, Yahoo, MSN, and the rest Internet pioneers that are feeding the world with the ludicrous idea that news and information can be free are making a huge mistake. The prescient press that refused to swallow this Google baits; The Wall Street Journal and few others that refused to give out their news for free got it right. The future doesn't belong to the New Media. The New York Times, Washington Post, Economist, and other frontline world publications seem to have gotten it right and that is why they are now charging fees for their online e-publications.
When news and information are given free to news consumers under the pretext of advancing democracy, it achieves exactly the opposite. If I had my way, I would hang Julian Assange and his crackpot colleagues at WikiLeaks. You don't advance democracy by undercutting and sabotaging it. Without news and information, you can't build an informed citizenry, but when you give free news and information to free citizens in a free democracy you build an indolent citizenry. Our kids do not read anymore. Serious intellectual discourse is disappearing. The mechanics of the English Language is being subverted and syntax no longer matters in a Cyber world where the good, bad, and ugly percolate in the Age of Information or Dis-Information? When do you last read a book? I mean a full-length novel or a biography, a quality book. Social media now thinks for us, rather than the other way round. A new group of media bourgeois has arrived in our world catching in on free thought running amok on Cyberspace. The result: a globalized citizenry that is lured away from being vigilant and alert to protect a democracy and instead is distracted into the mundane and the trivial. No human being ever gets involved in any venture wholeheartedly, if he/she has no investment in that venture, including a democracy. "Wherever your treasure is, "we were told by the Great Teacher 2000 years ago, "is where your heart will be as well." If information and news are the raw materials needed by the citizens in any democracy to make informed decision about a democracy, the notion of providing the raw materials gratis will cheapen that commitment to be informed. The corollary: democracy suffers!
I predict that as sanity returns to our news world and we untangle ourselves from the fleeting reveries of the social media and online world, Facebook, Twitter and the rest will soon realize they are distracting us and cheapening the democratic process rather than moving it forward. They will soon begin to charge fees. When Nigerian newspapers join The Punch and other nations follow, we shall all return to a safer world where news empowerment is not a right but a privilege.
Dr. Fayemiwo, CEO, Alternative Lifestyle Communication, DBA Chicago and co-author of "The Kingdom of Satan Exposed," is head of Global Missions and professor of Biblical Exegesis at Kingdom Bible College and Seminary, Tucson, Arizona, USA. He can be reached at [email protected] Visit his website: https://allternativecommunication.net/
This piece was originally written and published in this column more than 11 years ago, precisely on Tuesday November 26, 2013, and other media platforms our column articles are syndicated around the world. We have reproduced it now to felicitate with The Punch Newspapers of Nigeria on its 50th Anniversary.
THE JESUS CHRIST SOLUTION CENTER & E-CONGREGATION ASSEMBLY YOUTUBE CHANNELS DEBUTS
We are called to proclaim the Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Jesus Christ we proclaim is God Incarnate born sinless. He lived as human, though He is God to save us from Satan. He died on the Cross to shed His Blood for our sins to satisfy the righteous demand of a Holy God that without the shedding of blood, no forgiveness of sins. He paid the ransom for our sins. On the Third Day, He resurrected and today, He has the Power and Authority in heaven, on earth and in the nether gloom, because Death could not hold Him since He did not sin but took the punishment in our stead. He is reigning in the hearts of us who have put our trust and faith in Him. He is coming back to take us who are His Own to where He has promised to prepare for us, heaven. While we expect His imminent return, we appeal to you to forsake your sinful ways and join us together to fight our common enemy: Satan. Join us in the spiritual battle for the souls of human beings and make heaven. Don't go to hell.
Finally, the Holy Spirit moved and instructed us to debut on YouTube. At last, we are now ready to take the world for our Lord, Master, and Savior Jesus Christ Amen.
Click to Watch our Channel now:
http://www.youtube.com/@MoshoodFayemiwo2007
The Lord Jesus Christ moved mightily in fall 2023 in South Africa by exposing the Kingdom of Darkness. Here were what the Holy Spirit taught us. What is witchcraft? How are humans initiated? What are the reasons people venture into this dark act? How do witches operate and how do they summon demons? What are the signs of witchcraft activities in today's church and how to recognize witches and wizards masquerading as "pastors" and workers in the church? How can you overcome their activities in your Christian Life? Watch the though-provoking expose now on our YouTube Channel: -
http://www.youtube.com/@MoshoodFayemiwo2007
2024 ABAKALIKI, EBONYI NIGERIA BREAKTHROUGH IS LOADING! KEEP A DATE: FRIDAY MARCH 29, 2024-SUNDAY MARCH 31, 2024
It has been in the works for almost three years, but only now did the Holy Spirit give it a nod. Just as all the itineraries of the early apostles were initiated, planned, directed, and commanded by the Holy Spirit, so also in this ministry. We do not choose our evangelistic activities haphazardly but seek the Face of the One Who called us, our Lord, Master and Savior Jesus Christ, Hallelujah! Now, the coast is clear and our first spiritual voyage in the New Year 2024 is the Salt of the Nation, Ebonyi State. Our 3-Day seminar focuses on the State of Pastoral Calling. This is a -3-Day Spiritual Seminar and Re-Awakening. THEME-: Are You Truly Called To Be A Pastor By Our Lord Jesus Christ?
"Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness!'--- Matthew 7:21-23, Luke 6:46
The numbers of churches are mushrooming all over the country and the world, yet evil is ubiquitous at unprecedented levels. You hear atrocities committed by so called pastors and wonder, how many of these so-called pastors have been called by our Lord, Master, and Savior Jesus Christ? How does the True Lord God Almighty call people to pastoral work? Why are churches mushrooming at astounding rate but evil and wickedness are metastasizing, especially in Nigeria and Africa? How do you recognize a fake Pastor? What are the signs of fake churches? These are many more are what the Holy Spirit will expose in Abakaliki Ebonyi Breakthrough 2024. This Holy Spirit-directed Seminar requires registration for all attendees. It is absolutely free, but we want attendees to register so we can plan for our venue. Again, attendance is free as Jesus Christ commanded: "…Freely you have received and freely give" (Matthew 10:8b).
Contacts for Registration: - Evangelist Eugene Ohams (0803 468 6630), Sister Uhoma Esther Agha (0703 628 8454), Pastor Philip Onyejiuwa (0706 261 1949), Brother Kolawole Rahman Oladele (0803 957 8342), Brother Teslon Emeka (0704 868 8203), Pastor Roseline Nnenna Kalu (0803 040 8892) Dr Gerry Onukwugha ( +1 973 454-5411), Dr Moshood Fayemiwo (+1 254 605 4035).
MINISTERING: - Moshood Fayemiwo PhD, Margie Neal-Fayemiwo Ed.D, Gerry Onukwugha PhD and Evangelist Eugene Ohams.
. You can also visit our websites at: - https://tocu.education/ and https://tocu.online/
