When should the media speak? If not now?

By Tony Onyima

Recently, the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE), the umbrella body of newspaper and media editors in Nigeria, issued a statement expressing concern over what it described as the Senate’s sloppy and insensitive handling of proposed amendments to the 2022 Electoral Act.

The Guild’s intervention has since attracted criticism. Some commentators insist that the NGE should refrain from speaking on matters that do not “directly affect the practice of journalism.”

At first glance, that caution appears reasonable. It gestures toward procedural restraint and evidentiary discipline. But beneath its surface lies a constricted understanding of journalism itself. It assumes that the media’s legitimate concerns are confined to newsroom routines, professional accreditation, or welfare matters. That assumption is flawed. Journalism is not merely an occupation; it is a democratic institution. When the legal architecture of elections—especially provisions affecting transparency and public trust—is under debate, the matter directly implicates the environment in which journalism operates.

Electoral credibility shapes political stability. Political stability influences press freedom. Press freedom defines the space within which journalism can function. The chain is neither remote nor theoretical. It is structural.

To suggest that the Guild should remain silent because the issue is politically sensitive is to misunderstand the media’s constitutional and democratic mandate. The press does not become irrelevant when politics begins; it becomes indispensable.

The communication scholar Harold Lasswell offered a useful framework decades ago, identifying two central functions of the media: environmental surveillance and the correlation of society’s responses. Surveillance involves monitoring those who wield power. Correlation requires interpreting events and helping society respond intelligently. A legislative debate over whether election results should be transmitted electronically and in real time falls squarely within these functions. It concerns the mechanics of democratic accountability. If editors are to monitor power and interpret governance processes for citizens, then legislative amendments that affect election transparency cannot be dismissed as peripheral to journalism. They are core democratic questions.

Walter Lippmann famously described the press as the “searchlight” that illuminates public affairs for citizens who cannot directly observe the machinery of government. Elections are among the most consequential events in a democracy. If the mechanics of vote transmission – manual collation, electronic upload, real-time display – are being altered, the press has a duty to shine that searchlight. Editors, as leaders of newsrooms, cannot retreat into procedural minimalism when the credibility of elections is at stake.

Silence in such moments does not signal neutrality. It signals abdication.

Critics have also argued that the Guild’s support for electronic or real-time transmission of election results lacks sufficient empirical grounding. They point to the absence of a nationwide survey demonstrating that a majority of Nigerians demand mandatory real-time transmission.

Empirical data are valuable in democratic deliberation. But they are not the only legitimate basis for institutional opinion. Jürgen Habermas’ conception of the public sphere reminds us that democracy thrives on reasoned debate among institutions, civil society, and citizens. Professional bodies – whether of lawyers, doctors, or editors – frequently articulate positions grounded in accumulated expertise rather than commissioned opinion polls. Editors draw on years of reporting on electoral disputes, investigating collation controversies, and observing how opacity fuels mistrust. Their judgment is not casual speculation. It is informed by comparative experience, investigative exposure, and sustained engagement with public sentiment. Professional expertise is not the enemy of evidence; it is a form of evidence.

There is also a normative question that empirical surveys cannot evade: Does greater transparency enhance electoral integrity? If electronic transmission reduces opportunities for manipulation, strengthens audit trails, and builds public confidence, then supporting it can be defended on principled grounds. The social responsibility model of the press, articulated by Denis McQuail and others, holds that the media must promote accountability and openness. Supporting mechanisms that enhance transparency align with that responsibility. Democratic values are not always subject to a plebiscite. Few would demand a survey before defending judicial independence or opposing censorship. Transparency in elections belongs in that same category of foundational democratic norms.

Another line of criticism suggests that the legislature, as the symbol of representative governance, should be allowed to resolve its internal differences without external commentary. But democratic theory does not posit a hierarchy in which public discourse must wait upon legislative consensus. From Edmund Burke’s conception of the “Fourth Estate” to the libertarian and social responsibility traditions described in “Four Theories of the Press”, the media have long been understood as an informal counterweight to formal power.

Its voice is not an intrusion into governance; it is part of the ecosystem of accountability.

Legislative processes often benefit from robust public engagement before reconciliation committees conclude their work. To argue that public commentary is premature because a conference committee has not yet met is to imagine democracy as a closed conversation among lawmakers. In participatory democracies, policymaking is iterative and dialogic. Media interventions, academic analyses, and civil society advocacy frequently influence outcomes during the legislative process – not after it has ended.

There is also a subtle implication in the claim that support for mandatory electronic transmission merely reflects the “vocal opinion” of opposition politicians and civil society actors. Agenda-setting theory, developed by Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw, teaches that the media influences what issues the public considers important. Elevating electoral transparency to national attention is not partisan activism; it is agenda-setting in the service of democratic clarity. The fact that certain political actors share a position does not automatically invalidate the normative merits of that position. Principles are not discredited by association.

Journalists across Nigeria have covered elections marred by disputes over collation, allegations of tampering, and delays that breed suspicion. They have witnessed how opacity erodes trust and how trust, once broken, is difficult to restore. That experiential authority carries weight. It informs professional judgment.

Around the world, press associations routinely engage in legal, regulatory, and institutional debates that extend far beyond newsroom housekeeping. They do so because such frameworks shape the terrain on which democracy stands. In early February 2026, for instance, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) publicly called on the United States Congress and major presidential campaigns to adopt commitments strengthening press freedom. The appeal followed a significant decline in the United States’ ranking in the World Press Freedom Index. RSF’s proposals addressed legal protections for journalists, safeguards against intimidation, and respect for freedom of information laws. These were not newsroom technicalities. They were interventions in the legal and institutional environment that sustains democratic accountability.

Similarly, across Europe, media organisations have actively engaged in debates surrounding the European Media Freedom Act, advocating stronger safeguards against political interference in public broadcasting and regulatory capture. Again, these interventions were not about editorial style or newsroom management. They concerned the architecture of democracy itself.

The Nigerian Guild of Editors would hardly be an outlier in speaking on electoral transparency. Indeed, Article 2(d) of the Guild’s Constitution (2017) mandates it “to articulate the views of editors on issues of public interest.” Electoral law reform is plainly an issue of public interest. More importantly, Section 22 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) specifically charges the press, radio, television, and other mass media agencies with upholding the fundamental objectives of the Constitution and ensuring the government’s responsibility and accountability to the people. 

Those unfamiliar with the Guild’s history would do well to consult Lanre Idowu’s Uneven Steps: The Story of the Nigerian Guild of Editors (Diamond Publications Limited, 2019). The book chronicles the Guild’s founding principles, aims, and objectives, which have historically engaged national questions – from military decrees to constitutional reforms – precisely because editors recognised that journalism does not operate in a vacuum.

The press is woven into the fabric of democracy. Its independence depends on legal safeguards; its effectiveness depends on public trust; its survival depends on political stability anchored in credible elections. When electoral law is under review, editors cannot pretend that the matter lies outside their remit.

In the end, the question is not whether the Guild has overreached. The more compelling question is whether it would have failed in its duty by remaining silent. The debate over mandatory electronic transmission of election results touches the core of democratic legitimacy: transparency, trust, and accountability. On such matters, the media is not an outsider peering through a window. It is a constitutional stakeholder in all but name.

If not now, when the rules of electoral transparency are being debated, when should the Guild speak?

Dr Onyima, former Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of The Sun, teaches media at Paul University, Awka.

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