Written by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani | From the BBC
While travelling from Lagos to Abuja in 2011, a Nigerian “big man” who sat beside me on the plane discovered by glaring at my smart phone screen that I worked on Nigeria’s Next newspaper and began to complain bitterly.
He told me that a series of stories in the publication had led him to instruct “his people” to stop giving adverts to Next.
But he had first tried to negotiate with the relevant editor.
“I didn’t ask him to kill the story,” he said. “I simply asked him to ‘manage’ it.”
Perhaps less provocative headlines, he explained, or a less stinging choice of words.
However, the editor had informed him that things worked differently at Next than other Nigerian newspapers.
For example, a completely different desk from that where a story originated has the final say on headlines and kickers.
“That’s rubbish,” the big man said to me.
Patiently, I explained the advantages of that process, how it ensured best practice in journalism.
Next’s publisher, Dele Olojede, was a Pulitzer-winning journalist who, after over 20 years’ experience abroad, returned to Nigeria with the dream of revolutionising the country’s news media, where some journalists make their pens available to the highest bidder.
Some papers are known to collect payment from individuals or organisations in exchange for publishing stories.
Next promised that every editorial decision would be based solely on the judgment of the editors.
The big man shook his head in consternation.
“You’re not a Nigerian,” he declared. “You’d better follow your boss and go back to America. Next will never survive if you people continue like this.”
Next died a few months later, after three years of battling to keep its head above water.
A similar fate awaits many of the individuals and organisations currently buying into the “Nigeria Rising” narrative and rushing to invest in what is now Africa’s largest economy.
That is, if they insist on conducting business here while adhering to alien standards.
Read more at BBC
