Brown envelope journalism in Nigeria is a practice whereby monetary inducement is given to journalists to make them write a positive story or kill a negative story. The name is derived from cash inducements hidden in brown envelopes and given to journalists during press briefings. It is a common practice in Nigeria and many local journalists do know that it is considered unethical elsewhere. One of the effects is that the Nigerian media has become a thriving arena for sponsored stories.
Public relations (PR) – The practice of brown envelope journalism is sometimes described in Nigeria as PR or public relations by those who indulge in it. PR involves paying in advance for a newsworthy event to be reported by journalists.
Token of appreciation or for transport – This is monetary inducement given to journalists to gain undue favor under the guise that the bribe giver appreciates the time and mileage the journalist spent on a story.
Kola is a term that describes offering bribes to unethical journalists to cajole to conduct themselves unethically.
A major cause of brown envelope journalism is the poor renumeration of journalists. Many journalists' salaries are not paid on time and bosses sometimes justify this non payment by telling their employees to use the media platform to earn money. There are instances whereby magazines owe employees six months salary, even when paid, many journalists still earn less than $3 per day and graduate journalist earn as little as $200 monthly. It then becomes difficult for journalist who are hungry or have families to feed to live on the salaries alone and neglect taking brown envelopes.
Another cause is the influence advertisers have on the financial performance of media houses. Due to the revenues that accrue to media firms through advertisements, the media houses are well aware of the interest of advertisers and consider those interests in the packaging of sensitive news. Dele Olojede's Next Newspapers stopped printing as a result of drop in revenues from advertisers. Next's newspaper's crusading stance on political issues and probe into the oil sector hurt its ad sales and paid salutatory praises on politicians.
In some broadcast television stations sponsored news programs can reach close to 50% of news stories.
The effect of this form of journalism is that there is a shift in journalism from being a fourth estate to a publicity seeking outlet available to the highest bidder; integrity, objectivity and balance is weakened as a result and news is commercialized. It also creates an avenue for publicity seeking journalists to write commentaries that is intended to address personalities and not sensitive issues. Hence the Nigerian media is weakened and inefficeint and cannot function independently of politicians and businessmen.
