Recently, Rupert Murdoch the billionaire Fox News owner admitted during a deposition in writing and under oath in the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit filed against his Network by the voting machine company-Dominion Voting system that many Fox hosts endorsed Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
In the law suit, the company accused Fox News and Fox Corporation of “maligning” its reputation by”amplifying false claims that the company used its voting machine’s technology to rig the 2020 election against Trump who is a Republican in favor of President Biden who is a Democrat. The kernel of the allegations before the Delaware Superior Court is that; either “the Network knew the statements aired were false or recklessly disregarded their accuracy”.
Meanwhile, in the days preceding the 2023 general elections in Nigeria, it would seem to many observers that Arise News just copied all the styles used by Fox presenters with great exactitude. From news to interviews and Opinions, there appears to be no difference. Indeed, the election coverage was intricately planned in advance and as if schooled in Fox’s lock and step style.
‘Actors’ and surrogates were deliberately chosen and made to speak directly into the camera for great and impactful effects.
As a matter of fact, practitioners in the media have no doubt that the profession is embedded with vast array of techniques with which editors, sub-editors, reporters and even media owners can brainwash readers or viewers or listeners and slant the news story or articles to favor some special interest, business, civil societies or a political group. In other words, media bias is capable of doing irreparable damages to the society especially when it comes to crucial decision making like electing people who will govern and therefore affect millions of lives in the short and long term.
For example, the way Arise Television used ‘Visual Selection Bias’ has so far been highly effective. From the go, Asiwaju Tinubu was shown as weak and old and taciturn, whereas, Peter Obi was shown as strong and confident even in the backdrops. In actual fact, the selection of images are craftily done to skew the viewer’s perception of the story been told especially it’s significance to the onerous task of leading a country so “corrupt and needing urgent turnaround”.
Also, the ‘Reporting Bias’ can be seen vividly in coverage of Obi and Tinubu. The Chatham House report and the “Emilokan” in Ogun state was flogged out of proportion and with selective honesty. Particularly, the tone or spin of the examples are such that the Chatham House was cleverly presented to show incompetence while the Ogun state declaration was shown to portray “arrogance and selfishness” on the part of Asiwaju. Whereas the declaration started with “Yoruba lokan” and if you are looking for the particular Yoruba man; “Emilokan”. The omission of the first part was decided to put up the President-Elect even into disrepute with the Yoruba people in anticipation to dim the massive support it may generate.
In the area of “Sensationalism Selection Bias”, discerning viewers of Arise Television would have noticed the words used to call out the election and the selection of highly biased “experts” brought in to use the words. “Cancel the Vote Counting, Fraud, Worst Election ever, Rigged, and recently stolen mandate” were carefully coined by ‘opinion givers’ in the studio and parroted by invited guests and of course ended up on the social media. What these words are expected to work into the psyche of the society are fear, anger, and also excitement to keep the adrenaline flowing. It is not clear why opposing views were not permitted or why the few ones allowed on their platform were not given reasonable time to venerate their own views. All in all, whether it’s “Stereotyping or Definition Bias”, Arise Television erred big time in the coverage of this election as in ‘malice aforethought’.
It is interesting to note that Rupert Murdoch said that “the hosts Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro “endorsed” the false narrative promoted by Trump”. He also acknowledged in his deposition that “he could have ordered the network not to platform Trump lawyers such as Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani on its programs: I could have. But I didn’t “
Another irony is that most of the Fox hosts privately condemned the Trump team. Hanity was reported to have said: “That whole narrative that Sidney was pushing, I did not believe it for one second”. Yet, Murdock and his editorial executives continued to give platform to them while the hosts got nastier. Why? Simply to increase viewership and revenue!
Could these also be the motives behind the grossly imbalance coverage of the election by Arise, the kindred spirit of Fox. Or, could it be that Chief Nduka Obiagbena would have loved to install a president for Nigeria?
Of course Atiku won 12 States and Obi also won 11 States and Abuja. Any trained journalist can analyze the voting pattern and would know that all the three candidates and even Kwankaso won their ethnic conclaves. What stands Tinubu out was the bridges he built and maintained for over 30 years. In the Northern states, he won substantial figures even where he took second place and also in Lagos. That was how he won the proverbial 25% in 29 states. The albatross for his distractors is how to prove he did not win the Southwest and he did not come second in Kano, Kaduna, Katsina, Lagos, Adamawa and others. Arise News editors should have done their arithmetic. Tinubu couldn’t have rigged out Obi in the North because Atiku won most of the North. Assuming Obi insists that Tinubu rigged him out in Ogun, Ondo, EKiti and Oyo and we subtract the total vote of 1,362,556 that was given to him from his declared polled number of 8,794,726, he will still have 7,432,170 votes. How can Arise News not understand that Obi won 25% in 17 States?
My take is this: Judging by the facial expressions nuances and gestures of most of the hosts and invites on Arise Television, most of them know the truth. However , in order to hold and sustain the caught fishes in the pool of youth, and given that these youths help viral Arise TV clips on the social media the revenue stream can’t be dammed. Alas, the end justifies the means. But what happens if a defamation legal suit comes into play on the altar of AI generated deep fake images?
