Rural Areas And Media Coverage

The basic objective of the media is to inform, educate and entertain the audience popularly known as the readers. This equally denotes that the media play the role of bridging the communication gap between the government and the governed as well as make people participate actively in government programmes and activities at the federal, state and local government levels.

The laudable intentions of the government and the activities of the people cannot be achieved without efficient and effective coverage by the media. It has been observed that the media do not give adequate coverage to the rural areas of this country, a situation that is posing difficult challenges to the complex society.

An observation by a university lecturer, Professor Nkereuigem Udoakah of the University of Port Harcourt that rural areas in Nigeria are not given enough coverage by the media goes a long way to confirm this.

Really he said: “the way our rural areas are reported calls for concern as they are seen as good for nothing for the media”.

There is comparative news worthy events and programmes in the rural areas that should make Nigerian journalists and their organizations re-examine their attitudes towards rural coverage.

To communicate basically means to share ideas, information, opinion, feelings or experiences between people and the media to establish a common ground with people or groups at all levels of the society. This makes them the official watchdog of the society. The common ground must be established between both the rural and urban people involved in any communication processes and in the activities and programmes of government.

Based on this phenomenon, the media and its practitioners must re-assess the values which inform them that there is no news in the rural areas or that there is no market for rural news. Nigerians’ rural condition is a newsworthy phenomenon which developmental journalism must focus on.

The poor living condition of the rural dwellers in terms of development and neglect call for serious concern among journalists in the country.

A cursory look at the way and manner Nigerian media perceive rural news shows that the rural areas are alarmingly neglected in the same manner that the developing nations are treated by the western media. In the past, Nigerian media houses had their reporters or correspondents at the headquarters of every local government and they formed an important link in the newsgathering chain.

The role of these local government correspondents was to feed their head offices with news from distant localities, supplying the newsrooms with stories from the local government areas. In the political structure which the country is currently operating, there is a progressive movement of development efforts towards the grassroots. In this instance, the rural dwellers need journalists that would communicate their feelings and wishes to the government at the centre. But unfortunately, difficult, slow and sometimes frustrating as it is, the local government areas, as centres of development, are not recognised as important in the information flow system.

The Tide and other regional newspapers, for example, as government media, have a critical role to play in this regard by carrying news and information from the hinterland to the core of the state structure. The local government correspondents are the lynchpin in this news flow and they play more significant roles than is usually realized. This is a serious issue that must be looked into.

Nigerian journalists are stationed at the state capitals and some local government headquarters rated as economically and politically important. This development does not speak well for journalism practice in a developing country as Nigeria. Journalism should not be made essentially an urban affair and the rural areas should not only be heard in the news unless there is something done by the government. The social, cultural and political problems of the rural areas can be analytically or persuasively expressed through write-ups in newspapers, radio and television programmes.

The Nigerian media must develop a knowledge and recognition of the rural people through news, articles and features writing which would enhance the confidence, trust and cooperation needed for all sorts of development journalism. The rural dwellers are prepared to patronize or consume media products if they see what to derive from it.

By giving the rural areas the coverage or reportage they deserve, the Nigerian media would fully achieve its set objectives of information, educating, entertaining, persuading, motivating and scanning the environment, and satisfy their information needs.

Also by so doing, the journalist would have fulfilled his obligation to his audience or readers who are keen to patronise him. The media in terms of coverage should not limit to selectively chosen audience or beliefs but must develop as many appropriate channels through which their products, innovation or material can be distributed.

Media organizations should begin to see the proper and effective coverage of the rural areas as a priority, considering the fact that the majority of Nigerians are rural dwellers who need to be heard by the government and the ruling class. They require the considerations of the politicians they voted into power after campaigns to take appropriate actions to address their problems.

So, it has become imperative for media planners and practitioners to embark on modalities to identify and provide what the media consumers at the grassroots require or deserve to retain and boost their patronage.

Shedie Okpara