By Steve Aborisade
With that lewd editorial from Daily Trust, they have not only shown, just like the man they pilloried, that they lacked tact, but that they are as petty as unimaginative.
I would have expected them to show better class and demonstrate to their object of vile that there are better ways to public morality than resorting to gutter language to making a point. You had issued a beautiful statement backing your reporter and condemning Fani Kayode, I am not sure you need to devote a whole editorial space to a character you consider as low life to prove an obvious fact.
Instructively, the attempt at a controversial historical referencing lacking congent facts should also not have come as a position of a newspaper. Looked at critically, Daily Trust’s long tirade is largely fallacious and, draws life from a fallacy called Ad hominem – relying on feelings of prejudice, devoid of facts, reason, and logic to push a position. Just like it was presented, Ad hominem is often a personal attack on someone’s character or motive rather than an attempt to address the actual issue at hand.
Fani Kayode, like many of our overrated public officials, is not the best example of a privileged elite, nor has he ever pretended to be a worthy public official. But then, Daily Trust too, like many of our media organisations carry their baggage of partiality, lack of objectivity and toeing the path of sectional political interests. Isn’t it a common phrase that to know the truth of a newspaper, you only need to check who owns it.
The questioning by the reporter can hardly be divorced from some of these facts and, the tactlessness of the politician which he has always gotten away with were perfect elixir to the current situation.
I have read many media personalities and organisations whitewash Fani Kayode, a man they made from their greed and lack of broad insights about the role the media should play in a democracy.
The media have groomed a corps of timid reporters, who became timid and uninspiring from being underpaid, from being owed months to years of unpaid salaries, from being made to depend on brown envelopes and tips at the behest of politicians like Fani Kayode and, from having no job security, which explains why that reporter kept quiet being in the face of attack unsure if his employers would stand by him or not.
Daily Trust, like many of our media organisations and associations are as guilty as Fani Kayode. Most exists being bankrolled by politicians, so they are never impartial. Ever wonder why the press associations are funded by governors and other political office holders? They can’t hold elections without monies from politicians! They can’t even contest positions without being bankrolled by them. Fani Kayode had hilariously told the reporter to report himself to his publishers. It’s the norm! So where is the high moral ground that Daily Trust is standing on to so condemn a monster they all created?
Even as we need perspectives to moral dilemmas, we also must realise that the media as it stands today can’t show us the path without a moral rebirth. It is what it is.
