20 YEARS OF TELLING THE NEWS

IGIEBOR   They won't sue you if you call them the five musketeers. That is talking about Nosa Igiebor, Dele Omotunde, Onome Osifo-Whiskey, Dare Babarinsa and Kolawole Ilori. They, with Ayodele Akinkuotu and Ademola Oyinlola, both executive editors, took the Nigerian media industry by storm in 1991, and executed, perhaps, the biggest 'coup' in our journalism history.

They led some younger but equally vibrant journalists out of Newswatch to found TELL. The former quaked. The industry shook with 'aftershocks' from the tremor. But the magazine genre of Nigerian journalism has never remained the same again.

With a payoff line that at once sounds funny and loaded, 'Others watch the news, we tell it', they hit the market and forced a paradigm shift in the way we were doing investigative journalism. They did more. At a time it was suicidal to voice any dissent against Nigerian maximum rulers of the period, their magazine, TELL, joined other democratic forces to confront the dictators, until General Sani Abacha, expired in 1998.

Although the advent of democracy forced the media company to refocus and shift from adversarial journalism to the developmental genre, a transformation that made some people infer that they had whittled down a bit, TELL still rides the crest of fame as Nigeria's magazine of choice 20 years after. It has broken boundaries with earth-shaking stories, coasting home with awards year after year.

Nosa Igiebor, TELL's Editor-in-Chief, went down memory lane, last Wednesday, as he recalled the company's days of little beginnings, its various challenges, current developments and the future.

Excerpts: Twenty years in the life of any human is a considerable length of time. Now, bringing that to an entity like TELL, how has it been?

It has been extremely challenging. It has been a bumpy ride and at the same time a huge learning experience for all of us, and, indeed, everyone that has been involved in this process for the past 20 years till now. As you said, 20 years in the life of any organisation is not easy at all, particularly when you have to look back from the beginning. And we cannot but thank God Almighty for everything He has helped us to do. After God, we thank the readers who have, through the past 20 years, supported the magazine, by being faithful to it. We cannot thank them enough.

If people out there were to x-ray the trajectory of TELL, perhaps they would point at the period between 1992 and 1998, as perhaps the most challenging for TELL, and, perhaps, the most successful…

Yes, apparently. You will be right to think so and to see it that way. The period you mapped out was one that made TELL what it is today. It was also a period that could easily have sunk the magazine and the company. Again, but for the unflinching support of the public, but for the stout support of Nigerians, we might not have been able to withstand the onslaught of the military dictatorship of the time. With the support of the public, we stood like a rock despite the harassment of the military dictatorship of that time that employed practically all means and methods to frustrate TELL, and others out of business. They saw us as a threat to their hegemony and their grand design to hang on to power ad infinitum.

They seized our magazines from the press, hundreds and thousands of them. This represented huge financial losses for the company. But somehow we survived. The people saw that the cause we were pursing was the right cause and they identified with it. That helped us a great deal. They saw it as serving the best interest of Nigeria. To that extent, if the people had not believed in the cause that TELL was pursuing, I am not sure that TELL would have been able to carry on. If you are fighting for a cause and nobody believes in you, you can't go far. So, that support was key.

People also believed that, that period was the launch pad for TELL. There were some who said after Abacha withered, TELL whittled down.

It is not that TELL whittled but times change. True, we got a lot of flaks, particularly the first few years after an elected government came in from 1999-2007. We got a lot of flaks from people who said 'TELL is tired'. 'TELL is no longer fighting.' Well, I make bold to say that TELL has never changed. TELL remains TELL.

So what changed? It is the times that changed. The situation in the country had changed dramatically. We could see that during the period you mentioned, during the period of Babangida and Abacha, only independent communication like TELL could see those things that the ordinary people couldn't see. We interviewed top people in the opposition like Gani Fawehinmi, Beko Ransome-Kuti, and we could publish and wouldn't give a damn. Those were the people who were actually fighting to save the country and we identified with them and because this magazine did it, the people saw in TELL, a voice they didn't have. So, to that extent, they supported us by buying our magazine. We were not getting adverts then. No serious advertiser wanted to be seen identifying with TELL. We were not surviving on adverts but rather on copy sales.

But after the 'war'… After the 'war', anybody could go on television and abuse President Obasanjo or the late President Yar'Adua or Senate President David Mark. So, the truth is that the era of democracy in the country opened the space for free speech and you know that Nigerians like to talk. When we got that space, people could express their opinion, they could make their voices heard. So, what TELL and other similar publications were doing, every other person could now do it. That was what changed. Not that TELL changed. And because the times had changed, TELL had to refocus. But trying to refocus has its challenges, because when you have been pigeon-holed as a combatant outfit that must box every president, that must box every governor, that must box Dangote, that must box Shola Oshunkeye, that is not journalism.

Again, you must also recognise one thing: the ICT revolution has impacted the media industry worldwide, especially the print, in a very crucial way. That is the reason why many publications are finding it difficult to cope with the new challenges posed by this revolution. Many of them have had to go under, many others have had to change their ways of doing business. A good example is the Christian Science Monitor in Boston in the United States. It is one of the most credible American newspapers. And it is a non-profit newspaper. They get money from individuals and organisations to fund the paper. But in the new era of the Internet and social media, the paper was forced to stop printing. Now, all it does is a daily online edition. And the only print version is a weekly that comes out every Saturday or Sunday. They rested the daily version.

So, these are some of the changes that the media has to go through and in Nigeria, most media houses are poorly funded. They don't have the resources to make their investment transmit from the traditional old newspaper business to the new, modern, technology-driven model. That is the challenge many organisations are facing. And TELL is no exception. Sales have shrunk because these technologies have created so many sources through which people can access information. And for a weekly like TELL, which mode of operation revolves around the one-week news circle, the challenge was/is there. Everything was geared towards producing a weekly news magazine. But that is no longer the case. Technology is now a 24-hour news circle. In fact, it is now a minute-by-minute and second-by-second news circle. Because of technology, news has become instantaneous, because as things are happening in any part of the world, you are seeing it instantly on satellite television. You are already hearing about it on radio or seeing it on TV or satellite stations.

So, except you have the resources, like The Economist of London, to employ journalists in all fields, the terrain might be tough. The Economist does not break news; they explain the news to you. This is what the daily newspaper or the daily bulletins in the Internet cannot do. The Economist does it so expertly because they get experts from every field to explain the news to you. They will explain it to you, why it has happened and the impact or effect of what has happened. That is why The Economist is not troubled by the changes that we are experiencing in the industry globally.

But that notwithstanding, The Economist itself has had to embrace the new media. Now, you can subscribe to it online and it is even cheaper for you. While you will get a printed copy for five pounds or five dollars, if you subscribe, you will probably get it for a fraction of what you will pay for the printed version. And the same version you read in print is what you get online in addition to some features that you get by subscribing. So, those are the challenges that the media business is facing. That is why if you look at a company like TELL Communication Limited, it was a huge challenge that we had to meet headlong. And if we didn't do so, we would have become extinct.

There was a point in the life of TELL when people felt that the brand had come of age and it needed to diversify…

Well, that is a good question. We have talked about the aspect of technology. The other thing we have to talk about relates to this very question that you have asked. Let me put it this way, the era of one-man media organisation is gone. For any media house to survive now, it has to diversify. Actually there was a time that TELL was going to diversify but unfortunately, and again because of the perception of the media as an unstable business by the banks essentially, the major means of expansion and diversification was one, either you raise money from existing shareholders or, two, you go to the banks or, three, you bring in new investors. So, if you are talking about the diversification that requires some real sum of money, do you think I can conveniently put N5 million in this company?

I can't answer that, sir. I don't know… Come on, Shola, I mean, you know me now. You can answer it. If I could, I would put it. But seriously, the point that I am trying to make is that the kind of money we need to really make a big-bang change is not Nosa bringing N2 million or N3 million. And if you go to the banks, of course, the banks see the media as one risky business that the government can shut down at any time even though we are in the civilian era.

So they said to us, 'Sorry, we cannot give you money'. Actually, we wanted to establish a commercial printing press, not just a printing press. Commercial in the sense that we would not only be printing our publications, we would also be printing for all customers within and outside the print media industry. I mean, this is election time now, this is the season that the printers smile to the banks. So, if we had a commercial printing press, some of these printers that you are seeing everywhere, we can print them also. That is the kind of thing that I am talking about. Of course, we could not get the banks to bankroll the projects.

At the time I came aboard TELL in June 2001, the human resource in TELL was huge. We had so many assistant editors, senior assistant editors, and these were crack journalists, crack reporters in their own right. But TELL didn't seize that moment. People felt it was at that point that TELL missed it.

Well, we missed it not because we didn't do anything or we didn't make any effort to do anything. We had a plan. But, unfortunately, it is one thing to have a plan, it is another to have the money to execute the plan. Let me quickly mention this: one of our guiding principles is that we won't come to the table with people who would compromise the integrity of the magazine.

I mean there are a lot of people out there that can give us the money we are looking for. But we were very concerned about compromising the integrity and the independence of TELL. It is very key. During the time you are talking about, we got offers. Oh yes, we got offers; some of them very handsome. But we considered it very critically and we came to the conclusion that much as we desired to have new investments come in to enable us do new things, we also had to be careful so we don't go to bed with the wrong persons and end up destroying the legacies that we had laboured so hard to build.

We were not only thinking about assets, we were also thinking of people who had worked for TELL from the outset till that moment. We owed it to them and to the readers who had stood by us through our most trying periods not to compromise our integrity and, therefore, the company. That was why we never considered those offers. And, of course, it would have been the banks, but as I said, a lot of them were not prepared to take us serious.

When I was reflecting on the 20th anniversary of TELL, I went to my library and I saw that picture that we took on Acme Road on the day TELL was launched, 20 years ago. I recall, there were 10 of you in that picture. But today, that number has shrunken. What happened?

As I said, people move on. It's normal. Let me give you an example, one of the world's most famous companies, Microsoft, was founded by two people-Bill Gates and Paul Allen… But Paul Allen left because he was having some health challenges. But Bill Gates stayed back and he built the company into the giant that it is today. So, it is a normal thing in the life of every organisation that if you started with 10 people, it doesn't necessarily mean that in 20 years, you will have those same 10 people. You can still have them, I am not saying that it is impossible to have them, but as I said, times change and people move on either to do other things or for other reasons. Of course, it is a normal thing for people to pursue other interests.

And those directors that left didn't leave with any animosity?

Absolutely not. And they can still come here if they want? They remain shareholders in the company. Last year, we held our AGM in the company and they were here. There was no animosity of any kind. They left on their own volition.

Sir, I want us to set some things straight here. Before you relocated from Oregun to this place, a lot of things were flying in the media, especially the general interest genre of the media. They said you were going to dispose of that huge property on Kudirat Abiola Way, Oregun. At first, people thought it was a wicked rumour. But it persisted and you eventually did. Why did you do that?

Simple, we did it so that we could survive. That huge investment, people felt that… (Cuts in…) I will tell you because you are in the media industry. As at the time we sold that property, we owed our staff six months salary. We were owing our partners millions of naira. So, we took a decision to guarantee the survival of this company because there was no point having what you say is a huge investment, and we go extinct.

God forbid. Fine. As you said, it was a huge asset, but in spite of the huge asset, the banks didn't give us any money.

They didn't take that as collateral? The point is that, what are assets meant for? You had those assets to help the company; they gives you money to ensure that the company survives. So, if you have an asset and you can dispose of it and raise money, pay off your debts and re-energise the company, is it not better to do that? Because we were sitting on a 'huge' asset, and some bailiffs will come and say, 'this is a court order. You are no longer the owners of this property.' It could have happened. Anybody could have gone to court and obtain an order without you knowing. It happens in this country. You will be sitting in your house, and they will have seized your asset.

But on a serious note, that was not the reason why we had to sell it but there were things we wanted to do. Like the new media we are talking about. Do we need to go to the bank to borrow money to finance a modern operation? When you are leaving now, go and check our newsroom. We have made some huge investments in buying new systems, in buying software and hardware, and in creating a modern newsroom, which we never had. So, those were some of the benefits of the sale of the so-called huge asset. Yet, some of us are not complaining. Essentially, as I said, we did that to guarantee the success of this company and we are happy we did that and that God gave us that asset, because if we didn't have the asset, I am still thinking what would have happened to TELL Communications Limited.

That justifies the perilous times that the media industry has found itself…

Absolutely. But let me quickly add this, the media industry, both the print and the broadcast, needs to do some critical self-appraisal. The industry, as it is presently structured, cannot survive. As I said, the era of one man owning a newspaper and publishing one newspaper does not work anymore. It is just like the question you asked, why didn't TELL diversify? A modern media company is not just about a newspaper, a modern media company must have in its folio newspapers, magazines, radio, Internet and others. So, they pull the energies of all these other businesses together.

So, the era of a company like TELL magazine publishing a weekly newspaper and hoping to survive is gone and gone forever. That is the reality of today's world, at least, as far as today's world is concerned. In the years ahead, we are looking at diversifying and at the appropriate time, we will make the announcement.

The property must have landed TELL some cool billions…

I wish it landed us that much. Obviously if it did, you would have seen it all over us. But talking seriously, it didn't land us cool billions.

So, how much did it go for? I won't tell you how much we sold it but we sold it for a good price. Considering that the property market has virtually collapsed, you can say that we sold it at a bad time. But we had no choice but to sell otherwise if we had waited until the economy picked up and the property market picked up, we would have made far more money than we made for that property. But that notwithstanding, we are happy with the deal because we had to do so to guarantee the survival of this company. At least, today, we are not owing our staff six months salary.

That doesn't mean that we don't have challenges paying our bills, because magazines are especially disadvantaged. Look at this election period, where newspapers, radio and television stations are minting money from adverts. Magazines are not so lucky because we come out once a week and we produce ahead. And these adverts come at short notices and they want them to come out tomorrow. Newspapers can handle that, magazines can't. So, those are some of the challenges that we have seen that re-enforced our belief that we must do our business in a different way, by embracing and using new technology to drive our business. One of the things we are doing is that, one day, like The Economist and Times of London are doing, maybe you might want to read TELL magazine on your laptop, on your blackberry, on your IPad and others.

You have pre-empted me, sir. I wanted to ask you where TELL would be in five, 10, 15 years' time.

Let's talk about five years' time before we begin to talk about 10 years. If you don't get to five years' time, you won't get to 10 years' time. Well, as I said, we are working on a number of projects. We have sat down and have talked seriously and we have come to the conclusion that we need to give the company and the business a new direction, which is technology-centred. We realised that there are a lot of benefits in investing in the new technology, using it to create several platforms for your product. There is no reason why the only way you can sell TELL magazine is through the printed hard copy. There are many ways that you can sell it through soft copy.

There is no reason why you cannot sell every edition of TELL on smart-phones if people prefer to read it on their smart-phones or their e-devices like IPad. Those are the new technologies that enable us have more platforms through which we can sell our news products. So, that is one major project that we are working on. When we are ready, we will also tell the public more about (it).

At a point when TELL went full blast on advert campaigns and supplements and all that, a lot of people were reading some meaning into it, expressing fears that it would whittle down the editorial sharpness of the paper. Others said it would compromise the usual vigour with which TELL was doing the business.

Shola, you are in the media industry. You have been in the business and you are a top manager. People who say so, with due respect to them, don't understand the industry. The Economist carries supplement. TIME magazine and others carry supplements. Supplements are just like an advert about one thing covering so many pages. People have so many things they want to say and they pay for the space.

It is a legitimate way for publications to make money. So, if we carry a supplement on say, Abia State, or Lagos State, does that stop us from criticising the state if there is a need to do so? If we need to make Lagos State government listen to the voices of people in Epe, Awoyaya, Badore, Ajah, that they do not want to pay toll at the Lekki Toll Gate or that the toll is too high, are you saying we won't do it simply because we got supplement from Lagos State? Oh, come on! If we cease to do that, then, we begin to lose credibility not because we are carrying supplement from Lagos State but because we are not addressing an issue that people are worried about.

Okay, sir, you may want to look at it this way: can TELL, for instance, come to me, do big business with me in terms of supplements, and still have the moral authority to investigate me?

Can you mention one instance where we have failed to do a story on account of our getting supplement? Let them name any investigation or any story that TELL killed because we had carried a supplement either from their observation or what they know. Look, if you kill a story or refuse to do your job ethically as a media house because you have carried a supplement, you will be destroying your credibility and you will run yourself out of business. Besides, if you don't carry the story, someone else will carry it. Let me tell you, people who make the kind of insinuation you have just pointed out do so simply because they do not understand the industry.

You are not going to say you won't make money simply because people will criticise you. We have a right to publish supplements. If people are unhappy about it, it is unfortunate; and we wish there is a way we can make them understand that it does not, in any way, threaten the integrity of this magazine. We have done a lot of supplements for this government but it doesn't stop us from doing critical reports. We have carried two editorials asking President Jonathan not to run for the presidency. People don't see those things. But when we carry a supplement for Fashola, people will shout that we have sold out. We have a right to carry supplements.

Television stations carry supplements, newspapers carry supplements. So, why won't we carry supplements? The people saying so, are they prepared to fund us because we have to pay salaries and pay the printers? To give a short, sharp and simple answer, TELL has never and will never compromise because we published a supplement. That is not TELL.

The worst thing that TELL or any publication for that matter can do is to say, 'Oh because UAC gave me supplement, so if there is a story about UAC properties I will not carry it.' No, you are duty bound to carry the story. But carry a story that will be fair to all the parties involved. UAC will only be unhappy if you carry a story about them without reflecting their own side. UAC cannot tell you that 'Sebi, we are giving you advert?'

It is only an editor who does not know his onions that will succumb to threats from an advertiser that, 'if you carry that story, we will stop giving you advert.' You just tell the advertiser: Go to hell with your advert!