By Joke Kujenya
AT SOME point, as Nigerian journalists, we need to pause and ask an uncomfortable question: how did our work become everyone’s free resource?
This is not just about poor salaries in newsrooms. That conversation is old and exhausting. It is about something broader and more insulting, the quiet assumption across Nigerian society that journalists should show up, write, publish and promote without being appreciated, or even compensated.
Every week, journalists are summoned to events by government agencies and public institutions. Be they press briefings; policy launches or anniversaries, there is always a press release waiting, sometimes already written in the tone officials expect to see published.
What is rarely waiting is support.
Often, meagre transport allowance, no data support and largely, no honorarium. Sometimes not even water. Yet the expectation is clear: coverage must happen. Stories must run. Headlines must trend.
It has become a wonder to not a few journalists Press Secretaries and Public Relations Officers understand the value of visibility. They track media mentions. They compile coverage reports.
They attach newspaper clippings to official memos. Some use those reports to justify budgets, promotions and continued relevance.
But the journalists who create that visibility are treated as though their labour costs nothing.
It has become normal to hear officials say, “It’s your job,” as if journalism is charity work.
As if the reporter did not leave home, spend money, sacrifice time and apply skill to produce that story. In no other profession is this logic tolerated. Photographers are paid.
Consultants are paid. Even event planners are paid. Only journalists are expected to survive on “exposure”.
This culture did not appear overnight. It grew quietly, fed by weak media institutions, shrinking revenues and a society that consumes news endlessly but hesitates to value the people behind it.
However, this argument does not endorse the practice of collecting the decried “brown envelopes,” covert, unethical payments that compromise editorial independence.
Rather, it challenges the normalisation of unpaid labour in journalism and affirms the legitimacy of fair, transparent remuneration for professional work.
As newsroom salaries became irregular, external appreciation also disappeared. What remained was expectation without responsibility.
The danger is not just economic; it is ethical.
When journalists are constantly disregarded, professionalism becomes harder to sustain.
Research has already shown that poor compensation weakens independence. But beyond studies, the reality is simple: desperation erodes standards.
A journalist who is treated with contempt will eventually find other ways to survive.
Many already have.
Today, it is common to see journalists juggling public relations work, content creation and client-based writing alongside newsroom duties.
Not because they want to compromise their profession, but because journalism alone no longer sustains them.
Society benefits from their output while quietly pushing them towards moral grey zones.
Labour leaders have once called non-payment of journalists a crime.
They are not exaggerating. But even that conversation focuses too narrowly on media owners. It ignores the wider ecosystem, government institutions, agencies and corporate bodies, that benefit daily from unpaid publicity.
If journalism truly matters to democracy, then respect must be practical. Appreciation must move beyond compliments and plaques. Public communication has a cost, and someone must acknowledge it.
Calling journalism, the Fourth Estate sounds noble, a pillar of democracy, almost heroic, but nobility does not pay transport fares or renew data subscriptions.
Until Nigerian society stops treating journalists as free tools of publicity, the profession will remain wounded, and the public will receive a weaker, less independent press because of it.
Free publicity, as we are learning, is never really free. Someone always pays.
But pillars crack when they are neglected.
Nigerian journalists continue to hold power to account, tell community stories and inform citizens under conditions that rarely match the importance of their role.
If we truly value credible journalism, then paying journalists must stop being optional.
Stable income, clear labour protections and consistent payment should be the minimum standard, not an aspirational goal.
Until that gap is closed, the profession will continue to bleed talent, compromise standards and ask too much of those who give it everything.
Journalism cannot survive on passion alone.
Nice interview! Nice combination of music and journalism!