A free press is not a luxury. In a democracy, it is the difference between accountability and impunity.
On Sunday, a train derailed near Agbor. Videos went viral before the Nigeria Railway Corporation issued a statement. By the time officials spoke, narratives had already been set on X, WhatsApp and TikTok. Some true, some false, all fast.
That is the new reality of Nigerian governance: events break on social media, but verification dies in the newsroom. And when journalism stops “barking” — stops asking, probing, following the money — governance doesn’t get quieter. It gets darker.
This Thursday, as we mark another cycle of press conferences and budget defences, it is worth asking a hard question: What happens to good governance when the watchdog stops barking?
The watchdog was never meant to be a pet.
Democracy has four legs, scholars say: information, education, debate, and scrutiny. Journalism’s job is not just to inform you that a minister spoke. It is to ask if the money he spoke about was actually spent.
That “barking” function is why military regimes feared the press more than the opposition. The press didn’t carry guns. It carried documents. It didn’t enforce punishment. It exposed what needed punishment. In Nigeria’s past, that barking gave citizens power over power.
Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel put it plainly in ‘The Elements of Journalism’: journalism’s first loyalty is to citizens, not to government or to profit. When that loyalty shifts, governance shifts with it — from accountability to impunity.
The watchdog is not dead. But it is tired, underfunded, and distracted. Four pressures are muting it:
Empty newsrooms, empty investigations: Investigative journalism is expensive. It needs time, lawyers, travel, and data analysis. Advertising revenue collapsed when Google and Meta ate the market. Most Nigerian newsrooms now run on skeleton staff.
The result: We get press releases rewritten as news. A minister announces a project, and we publish the quote. Six months later, no one checks if the project exists. Budget implementation becomes invisible because no one can afford to follow the money for 6 months. Corruption thrives in that blind spot. Research by Alberto Brunetti and Beatrice Weder shows that countries with stronger press freedom have measurably less corruption. Coincidence? No.
Politics in the newsroom: Ownership matters. When media houses are funded by politicians, businessmen with government contracts, or political patrons, the bark gets selective. Criticism becomes loudest against opponents, quietest against sponsors.
During election season, this gets worse. Some outlets investigate “their” candidates thoroughly. Others become PR agencies.
The public notices. Trust drops. Once citizens believe “all media is biased”, they stop listening to any media, and democracy loses its referee. Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky warned of this in ‘Manufacturing Consent’: ownership and funding structures shape what gets reported, even without direct censorship.
The TikTok effect: Digital platforms removed the gatekeepers. Now everyone is a broadcaster. That is good for access. It is dangerous for verification. Research by
Soroush Vosoughi, Deb Roy and Sinan Aral at MIT found that false information spreads 6 times faster than the truth online because outrage travels faster than facts.
During protests or scandals, unverified videos hit WhatsApp groups before reporters can verify them. By the time a newsroom publishes a fact-checked story, the narrative is already set. Journalism is forced to react instead of lead. And reaction is not watchdogging journalism. It is damage control.
Ethics fatigue: When journalists chase clicks instead of facts, the profession loses its distinctiveness. Sensational headlines. Unverified claims. Stories written from Twitter threads. The audience can’t tell the difference between a reporter and an influencer.
Once that line blurs, credibility dies. And credibility is the only currency journalism has. Mark Deuze of the University of Amsterdam argues journalism’s legitimacy rests on autonomy, public service and verification. Without those, it becomes just another content stream.
What then is the actual cost to governance?
Here is the part politicians won’t say out loud: Weak journalism makes bad governance cheaper.
When newsrooms stop investigating procurement, contract execution gets sloppy. When no one tracks budget performance, abandoned projects multiply. When press conferences replace public hearings, officials speak more and answer less.
Alberto Brunetti and Beatrice Weder are clear: free press = lower corruption. Timothy Besley and Robin Burgess found that media access forces governments to respond faster to public needs, especially floods and food shortages. Information is not just talk. It is enforcement.
In Nigeria, investigative reports have forced public inquiries, stopped shady contracts, and embarrassed agencies into action. That only happens when journalism has resources to “bark” consistently, not occasionally when a whistleblower leaks documents.
Without that, accountability becomes accidental. And governance built on accidents is not governance. It is luck.
The paradox is that we have more noise and less trust.
Today, Nigerians have more information sources than ever: 100+ TV stations, thousands of blogs, millions of X accounts. Yet trust in news is falling. The *Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford* 2024 Digital News Report shows a global decline in news trust, and Nigeria mirrors it.
We suffer from “information overload”. Martin Eppler and Jeanne Mengis defined it as too much data, too little clarity. Citizens scroll through 50 takes on one issue and still don’t know what is true. That is when journalism is supposed to step in — not as another voice, but as the verifier.
But verification takes time. Time costs money. Money is what newsrooms lack. So, we end up with a paradox: More voices, less trust. More content, less accountability.
Let’s rebuild the bark!
The watchdog can bark again. But it will take deliberate choices from newsrooms, government, and citizens:
How can we make verification of identity, not speed?
Journalism is not defined by who posts first. It is defined by who gets it right. Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel call this “disciplined verification”. Newsrooms must reward reporters who prove stories, not just those who publish fastest. Corrections must be visible. Transparency builds trust.
We can actually protect editorial independence fiercely.
No democracy survives when editors take calls from politicians before publishing. Ownership structures must not dictate coverage. This needs internal newsroom policies, but also public pressure. Citizens must boycott outlets that act as PR firms for power.
Nigerians and Africans should fund public interest journalism.
Investigations don’t pay for themselves. Victor Pickard of the University of Pennsylvania warns that declining revenue models have pushed newsrooms away from long-form accountability work. We need new models: reader subscriptions, nonprofit funding, collaborative projects between newsrooms, even public funding with strict independence safeguards like the ‘British Broadcasting Corporation’ model. If society wants accountability, society must pay for it. Free news is not free — someone always pays, and often it is the truth.
Mainstream media can actually adapt without becoming the noise itself.
Social media is not the enemy. It is the street where people gather now. Journalism must be there, but it must not become the street. Use TikTok to explain budgets. Use X to share documents. But never drop verification to match the speed of rumours. That is how journalism dies.
We have to rebuild audience trust every day.
Trust is not claimed; it is earned. Thomas Hanitzsch and colleagues in ‘Journalism Studies’ found that audience trust is tied directly to perceptions of accuracy and ethical consistency. That means explaining your methods, admitting errors quickly, and showing your work. When citizens see how journalism is done, they are less likely to believe “all journalists are bought”.
The conclusion is: no watchdog, no democracy.
Governance without journalism is like a bank without CCTV. The building stands, but theft becomes easy.
Nigeria’s problems — budget padding, contract inflation, and abandoned projects — do not persist because we lack laws. They persist because we lack consistent light on those laws. Journalism provides that light. Denis McQuail in ‘Mass Communication Theory’ reminds us that the media is embedded in democracy’s accountability architecture. Remove it, and the structure weakens.
If the watchdog stops barking, impunity stops hiding. If newsrooms keep choosing speed over truth, governance will keep choosing secrecy over service.
This Thursday, as new policies are announced and old promises are repeated, remember: A democracy that cannot be questioned cannot be fixed. And a press that cannot investigate cannot question.
The watchdog doesn’t need to bite. It just needs to bark. Loudly, consistently, and truthfully. Our governance depends on it.
Bottom line is that a free press is expensive. But an unfree press costs a nation more.
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