As someone who appreciates the role of the media in shaping society, it is my pleasure to address you at this event. Today’s chairman, Professor OluremiSonaiya, has also been an important voice in our public discourse. It is also my pleasure to be here because I am among former colleagues. I don’t know how many of you know this, but in my former life I worked in the media with Newswatch. That is why I am very much at home with journalists. I was at Newswatch in its glory days, when it was one of the most widely read news magazines in Nigeria, and one of the most trenchant and consistent voices against a military establishment that had long overstayed its welcome. Under the leadership of that trio to end all trios –Ray Ekpu, Dan Agbese and Yakubu Mohammed – Newswatch was an example and an inspiration to many, a guiding light in those difficult times of the struggle against military rule. I recall the many battles fought against the military in court, through bans and harassment by security agents, with the obvious aim of silencing us. My work in the media didn’t end with Newswatch. I also was a special correspondent for international publications like the Christian Science Monitor and Africa News Service, as it was known at that time, as well as a contributing columnist for The Guardian. Media and technology Thirty years after I left it, the media landscape in Nigeria has changed significantly. Print consumption is in what looks like permanent decline, with online consumption holding sway. While the mode of consumption of news has changed, the role of the media to inform has not changed. We exist in a time that is defined more and more by what some have called an information deluge. In addition to traditional media like TV, radio, billboards and so on, we now have the constant barrage of notifications from our mobile phones, alerting us to all sorts of things, the majority of which could be described as trivial. And yet these trivialities have the capacity to take up all our time and leave us unable to focus on the things around us that truly matter. Media these days is indistinguishable from technology. Where once the medium was separate from the message, they have become one and the same, fulfilling Marshall McLuhan’s prophecy. Our choices at every level are influenced by our exposure to the Siamese twins of media and technology. In this day and age, it is easier than ever before to become a news outlet, and the revelations about the use of the Facebook platform by organizations to harvest user data and use it to spread falsehood and influence the outcomes of elections and referendums, should give us all pause to reflect about the impact of news outlets on our psyche. There are a number of schools of thought about the way media should interact with society, and development reporting stems from the development theory of media, which holds that media should be an agent of educating the masses in line with the development needs of a nation. It says that development communication is that which is employed for the purpose of social transformation. Development Reporting What do we mean by development journalism? It is a bit of a controversial term because its critics call it “government-say-so” journalism.But it broadly means that journalism in developing countries should contribute to social transformation by educating and informing citizens on activities that contribute to economic and social development, highlighting the importance of those issues and activities. In this understanding, there is a conscious bias by the media towards what is seen as a larger goal of the society, and less emphasis on other issues that may be newsworthy but are seen as “trivial” or just not advancing the desired consciousness that development journalism seeks to create. We had a lot of development journalism when the role of the government was in the society and the economy was very strong in many countries including Nigeria, in the 50s, 60s and 70s. In some countries with socialist governments, there simply was nothing else. As from the 1980s with economic liberalization, development journalism began to die a natural death as the media sought to survive in increasingly capitalist economies by being relevant to its consumers by giving more attention to new trends. Today, development journalism is practiced only by specific, specialized media, much of it, ironically in the western world in the context of these countries’ roles in “international development”. We have as examples Devex, an organization that publishes news and views on development issues around the world. Investigative journalism and social transformation One of the major ways by which the media that play role of a catalyst in social transformation is through investigative journalism. By uncovering evidence of malfeasance and shedding light on social ills, journalists can influence public discourse in a major way. There is so much that is wrong with our country today, and a vibrant tradition of investigative reporting can help change this. The tradition of investigative reporting in Nigeria has been dying slowly as news has become more commercialised, that is why the work of outlets like Premium Times and the Wole Soyinka Center for Investigative Journalism, for example, is crucial to keep those traditions alive. Speaking truth to power and going beyond press releases is never easy, but that is what must be done in order to truly make an impact. Good investigative journalism is about resources, and the ability for editors and publishers to resist external pressure when reporters ask uncomfortable questions. There is a general absence of both, and that is a key reason why there are so many important stories which remain untold. The ownership structure of the Nigerian press has always been centered around politicians, or those who aim to go into politics. Even back to pre-independence days, Herbert Macaulay, NnamdiAzikiwe, ObafemiAwolowo and other leading political agitators all owned media outlets. After independence,