Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

DopeReporters

Opinion

Unlike Abati, Channel TV’s Seun and Maupe Deserve Praise- By Farooq Kperogi

As a journalism professor and former journalist, I feel obliged to point out that Channels Television’s Maupe Ogun-Yusuf and Seun Okinbaloye aren’t getting the plaudits they deserve for the excellent, well-conducted interview they had with Buhari last week in spite of the limitations they had to contend with.

Their questions were pointed, direct, relevant, earnest and in the public interest. Their follow-up questions were even more appropriate, probing, and intense. And their delivery and demeanor were commendably professional. They also came across as supremely assertive, confident, knowledgeable, and well-prepared.

It was their brilliant interviewing skills and their capacity to artfully pivot away from the pre-submitted questions Aso Rock compelled them to turn in before the interview that helped expose the all-too-well-known soft underbelly of Buhari’s mental and intellectual debilities, which his handlers have been working extremely hard to conceal.

The Channels TV interview was a model for interviewing a reclusive, carefully packaged know-nothing like Buhari particularly when you compare it to the professionally disgraceful PR show that Arise TV’s Reuben Abati, Segun Adeniyi, and their colleague did with Buhari on June 10, 2021.

As I pointed out in my June 19, 2021, column titled “Abati, Arise TV’s PR Show, and Buhari’s Dementia,” “The questions were feeble, obvious follow-up prompts were ignored, the questioners were diffident, and the viewer was left scratching their head about what they had just watched. It was the journalistic equivalent of a bad circus.”

I also said Arise TV’s “‘interview’ did not have the haziest resemblance to a professional journalistic interview. It was a predetermined, duplicitous public relations performance that stole and wore the garbs of journalism to give it undeserved professional legitimacy.”

It’s curious that while Arise TV is supposed to be a “PDP” (or “oppositional”) channel (if it’s possible for anything Nduka Obaigbena owns to be anything but mercenary, that is), Channels TV is supposed to be the “APC” (or “pro-government”) station. Yet it was Channels TV journalists who asked sharp inquisitory questions to Buhari and Arise TV journalists asked weak, transparently propagandistic questions designed to obscure Buhari’s failings, which Abati followed up with another nescient PR piece in ThisDay.

It’s also curious that Abati and Adeniyi are primarily print journalists while Okinbaloye and Ogun-Yusuf are primarily broadcast journalists. Print journalists are often stereotyped as deep and critical and broadcast journalists as shallow and obsessed with glamor at the expense of substance.

But it was Abati and Adeniyi who were shallow and uncritical and Ogun-Yusuf and Okinbaloye who were self-assured, probing, and who embodied all the high-minded virtues of journalistic integrity.

Stereotypes, even the most time-honored professional stereotypes, can and often are misleading. Good job, Seun and Maupe!

Written By

Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

You May Also Like

Nigeria

Adamawa APC Reverses Suspension Of SGF Boss Mustapha (Video)By Ibrahim Abubakar, Yola The Adamawa state working committee of All Progressives Congress, APC has reversed...

Press Release

POLICE FOIL ORGANIZED PLAN TO KIDNAP A 40 YEARS OLD:- ARREST FOUR · Recovers two Single Barrel Guns, Two handsets, Charms others …. ....

Nigeria

A fomer Nigerian Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, his wife, Beatrice, have been found guilty of organ trafficking in the United Kingdom. The duo...

Nigeria

Gov Fintiri’s Campaign Organisation, NGOs Call For Removal Of Adamawa REC (Video)By Ibrahim Abubakar, Yola Governor Fintiri campaign organisation and non governmental Organisations have...

Press Release

PRESS STATEMENT Rhodes-Vivour Challenges Otti On Abia Development …Congratulates him for redeeming Abians The Labour Party (LP) Lagos governorship candidate, Arc. Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour has...

Copyright © 2021 DopeReporters

Home