ABSTRACT
There
are legal and social problems that have continued to restrain the Nigerian
journalists from adequate and effective news reporting & dissemination.
These laws are meant to dictate to journalists what they should and should not
publish or broadcast. Whether in a military or a civilian government, these
laws are always there to serve the objectives of the powers that be, and to
brow beat the press. In the past military dictatorships many journalists
suffered all sorts of harassment, deprivations and depredations. However, when
the military relinquished power to a democratically elected civilian government
in May 1999, there was general relief owing to the belief that member of the
‘fourth estate of the realm” would have relative. The research was explained
under the libertarian and social responsibility theories which the duo aiming
at press freedom and media responsibility to the society. Propose sampling as
non-probability technique was used to select 120 respondents from the Nigeria Union
of Journalists (NUJ) chapel Osogbo with 60 from print and another from 60
broadcast media respectively. Questionnaire was used as a data collection
instrument in eliciting responses from the respondent. The data collection were
analyzed and interpreted using frequency and percentage table. Findings shows
that press enjoy more freedom under democratic governance than under the past
military yet the freedom is not 100percent complete even with the passage and
assented of the New Freedom of Information Law. For the purpose of this study
survey research method was adopted while questionnaires were distributed to the
selected respondents within Nigerian Union of Journalists chapel in Osun State,
Media organization and media associations should as well educate, organize,
workshops and seminars for their staff and members on how to make use of the
new FOL law in shaping the practice of journalism in this democratic era.
