The New Face Of Junk

Junk journalism: Is a news story that is written without adequate research, investigation or information before publication.

Junk journalism is aimed to promote traffic to news sites or to get public patronage by fabricating alarming pack of lies for news readers and listeners.

Ethical issues like character assassination is affecting journalism practice in Nigeria. Over the last years, there has been a rise in low-quality, and even completely fabricated news across the media space.

One Mr. Oseni Rufai, plying his trade with Arise Television, represents the new face of junk journalism in Nigeria.

Rufai is deceitful. He thrives on falsifying news. He slants news to suit his political bias. He completely fabricates news and severely distorts information while presenting such in news format.

As opposed to unregulated social media, mainstream news are supposed to have well-edited content, and published by established news media. How Oseni Rufai found his way into Arise Television remains a mistery.

And what are the offences of Oseni Rufai?

He lacks professionalism, he is a sensationalist, he deploys strong emotional appeal to deceive, he is very low on credibility, uses low-quality sources, no fact-checking, dishes false information, involved in hyper-partisan reporting, and even news forgery. That’s Rufai for you.

It is becoming clearer and obvious that Oseni Rufai’s heavily distorted messages are targeted to politically destroy some persons.

How long he will last on this journey to perdition remains to be seen.

One thing is certain; Darkness cannot eclipse light.

Eze Ugochukwu writes from Owerri, Imo State.