Rahamatu-Lahi Zakaria || Sanatu Zambang Editorial
Growing up, I was never a radio person. All I did was watch TV and read newspapers. Though we had a radio in the house and my grandma would call me sometimes to come and turn on the radio for her. That still did not draw my attention to the radio until senior high school (SHS).
I became a radio addict in SHS. With no regrets, I could use my last coin to buy a radio set and an earpiece in SHS. Back then, we had few radio stations in the capital. People employed to sit at the console acted maturely and were mindful of what they said on air.
We had educative and entertaining content on the radio though we had fewer radio stations than now. After completing SHS, I abandoned radio and returned to my print and TV.
2020 was the year I came back to radio again. This time around, I just wanted to have a feel of the current state of radio in the capital. This experience gave me a new perspective on the kind of people who use our airspace and if they understand the power of radio in this era.
I compared that to my SHS days and see professionalism keeps dwindling daily. The rise of radio stations in the capital and the new breed of radio presenters came with zero professionalism and moral ethics from practitioners. Sometimes I asked myself the question if those employed to speak on air have any idea about the ethics of the work and if they understand the responsibility it comes with.
Radio is a good tool for education, information and entertainment. What you say on radio can make and unmake a nation. One example that is well known to us is the Rwandan genocide. Just a sentence a radio presenter said, caused thousands of people to die. Just as radio was use to destroy; radio was use again to build a broken nation through radio dramas.
The new crop of radio presenters thinks being controversial is the measure of being good on the radio. I do not know if that is the criteria used to employ them. The new crop of radio presenters duels more on controversies without thinking about the repercussion.
So much is spent disrespecting and insulting people than the content of the program. Presenting on radio is so much about making name irrespective of the technique used. You listen to a whole 30 minutes program, and you cannot tell the content of the program.
From the start to the end of the program is about disrespecting colleagues in the media fraternity, policing other people’s life choices, insinuations, making derogatory comments, and unsubstantiated allegations. In trying to make name for themselves on the radio, they end up becoming targets for people to lynch.
One basic thing in media is to respect your audience because the audience is what you sell to potential sponsors or business partners. These newbies throw that to the dogs. You can listen to a radio program and the presenter is busy cursing his audience or insulting them. The lame argument is that this audience hates him. Yes, I know right. It does not sound right coming from a mentally stable person.
Most of these presenters are so self-entitled that, they do not know that, their actions are driving potential listeners and business partners away from their radio stations because of the posture they have taken. They become a double edge sword for their employer.
Radio airtime has also become a space for these presenters to sing self-appraisal songs for themselves. A presenter can use 30 minutes worth of airtime just to talk about his qualities, his powers and how no one can much him in the industry.
They spend time boasting about themselves that, you forget what the program is all about because there is always that deviation to talk about themselves and not the program they are hosting.
In between these boastful talks, some go as far as to play the self-titled song that they have employed a musician to compose for them. Sometimes they play the song before the start of the program and when they are signing out.
These self-acclaim best presenters have turned radio airspace into a boxing ring. The newbies use airtime to battle fellow practitioners, fans or the public whom they presume to be their enemies. A presenter can use his airtime to insult and make derogatory comments to anybody he has issues with forgetting that, he has a program to host and in the process, disrespecting his listeners with no remorse and apologies.
Another observation is that presenters wear moral cloaks. This moral cloak is targeted at women. These presenters become the plaintiff, defendant, lawyer, judge and executioner. They feel they have the moral right to persecute women or girls. They use derogatory words that are not allowed on radio to describe women. Their self-entitlement and misogynistic behaviours are sickening. When they start policing women, it feels like they are sinless and spotless like snow.
All these above-mentioned points have in some ways affected the ones engaging in them. For instance, some media personnel have been beaten by some grieve fans of some musicians for insulting their artiste. A woman has also reported a radio presenter to the police for calling her a prostitute on his program.
Others have had their car windscreen broken by some fervent fans of some musicians. But that is not to say we do not have professional radio personalities in the region. We still have radio stations that go hard on its personnel to uphold the ethics of journalism on the radio.
Some radio stations will rather play music if they do not have content to air. Other media personnel practice their trade with great admiration and you are not worried about the language they use on the radio. They respect their listeners and go as far as asking their panellists to apologise if they use unfriendly words on the radio or risk being sent out of the studio