The U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, Mary Beth Leonard, says one of the challenges that democracies worldwide face is an “unfortunate, pervasive lack of trust in the media.”
Ms Leonard, said this during a meeting with the Nigerian Guild of Editors on Thursday in Lagos.
She stated that brown envelope journalists are destroying the Nigerian media and that the narrative needs to change.
“Brown envelope journalism undermines the public’s trust in the media, erodes journalistic integrity, and defeats the media’s ability to play a transparent oversight role over government actions,” she said.
“ the practice corrodes the institutional position of the media as what we refer to as the “Fourth Estate,” or one of our pillars of democracy,” she added.
She urged Nigerian media to leverage their right to press freedom by countering propaganda and disinformation through regular and impartial fact-checking.
