Descriptive Experiences on Photojournalism Practice: A Cross River and Akwa Ibom States’ Confession

Abstract

This study sets out to examine personal challenges and prospects of photojournalism practice in Nigeria. The study was basically extracted from personal experiences of photojournalists in Cross River and Akwa Ibom states; believing these parts of Nigeria have been neglected and voiceless on steaming issues concerning photojournalism in the practice of print media reportage. Apart from the identified problem of negligence, it has produced a low patronage of professionals in the practice and by such applicable standards affected readership interest. Given a serious or greater deal of attention compared to the high presence of photojournalists in other states. In such an impasse, readership consumption mix is found at a cross roads. Hypothetically, five qualitative interview research questions through the researcher’s personal effort and telephone calls were carried out. Findings attributed their challenges to lack of interest in the profession, poor technological exposure, assault and unfair treatment meted on the photojournalists or the photojournalists’ lack of apprehending creativity to express news through pictures. The simple random technique was employed in selecting three (3) photojournalists from Calabar Municipality in Cross River and five (5) in Uyo city in Akwa Ibom states. The researcher’s effort discovered that yellow journalism was in the increase as it is related to some level of lopsided reports, geared towards dwindling effective professionalism. These enabling efforts will rescue commendable memories in photojournalism as attracting more interest to their photo messages. The prospects of Nigeria’s photojournalism from Cross River and Akwa Ibom states’ confession lie in fine-tuning the attitude of the managers of press houses in accepting the photojournalist as a visual reporter, irrespective of their glaring challenges. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n13p571