The Shame Called Rivers State Broadcasting Corporation!!! As a true son of Rivers State,I must not fail in my duty to express my displeasure and frustration with the government owned, censored and controlled River State Broadcasting Corporation!!! I am saddened by the stations refusal to obey the sacred role of the media in the society as enshrined in Section 22 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended). For the Stations to get back its lost glory,it should be privatised, right now it has become Rotimi Broadcasting corporation!!! Like other states government owned media houses in the country,RSTV, Radio Rivers and The Tide Newspaper has become a propaganda tool of the government of the day........ In terms of content, the corporation is worse than useless, it betrays the very purport of the ‘Fourth Estate of the Realm’. The state owned TV, Radio and Newspaper houses, are so insensitive and desolate that one begins to wonder if there is actually a need to have those stations.... You tune in to these stations day in, day out, all you see and hear are praises of the government. Most of the programmes are geared towards painting a decaying and terribly flawed administration as people oriented, so they air adverts of inflated projects that the government has succeeded in carrying out endlessly as if the life of the corporation depends on that. If thirty minutes passes without reference to Outgoing Governor Rotimi Amaechi, then something is wrong. It is so bad that the ills in the society is being concealed by the very people who by the nature of their calling are suppose to expose them. Such a tragic failure, such a shame. As it is today, only a naive person goes to RSBC with grievances against the government with the expectation that he or she will be given a platform to ventilate same. When the stations occasionally report happenings that seem to expose the government to criticism, it is just in error. The Radio Rivers,Tide and RSTV are anything but objective. Even some of their highly placed members of staff and management of the corporation are concerned with the sorry state of affairs of the media outfits.. and the civil society in the state admitted to the accusations but they claimed it was occasioned by job insecurity. The question then remains:has any staff of the corporation ever been sacked for discharging his duties professionally? In terms of sound and visual quality, the stations scored zero. Of course, having discovered that people no longer patronise the ignoble role that the TV,Radio and Newspaper components of the corporation are playing in deceiving and fooling the credulous populace, the government has refused to acquire sophisticated equipment and a digital transmitter for the corporation to aid them in their criminal, partisan and mendacious reportage. The station is only sponsored by the Amaechi administration because of the poisonous stories, news and adverts of RSBC with equanimity.. How can these people be dissipating tax payers money on frivolous reportage of irrelevant government activities. The point should be made that this detestable state of affairs would not be possible without the imprimatur of the state governor. We need to properly situate this issue, the media in Rivers State is currently under severe attack from a government that is intolerant of the opposition and dissenting voices. Because of Amaechis desperate ambition to impose a successor on the people of the state in 2015,the media has been chained like the House of Assembly and Judiciary... The media is crucial to the survival of our nascent democracy, it is therefore imperative for us to insist on her independence. The fact that a media organization like the RSBC is funded by the government does not justify the kind of garbage that is being offered to the public by RSTV,Radio Rivers and Nigerian Tide...... Those entrusted with power must be reminded of the epochal words of Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, who said that “the greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism”. If we do not call RSBC to order, very soon, they will report how the governor decided to the toilet or the manner he sleeps with his family.... Maybe then, Rivers people will rise up and say Enough is Enough......... Copied!!!!
Posted on: Mon, 28 Jul 2014 22:10:46 +0000