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CHAPTER ONE

Background to the Study

The Press is the moulder of the society. Although this fact has been lashed with numerous criticisms, we cannot deny the fact that the press shapes the society. Most journalists are aware of this, so they determine, even to the extent of sacrificing their lives, to give the society what it desires and what it needs.

The reporter who is scampering to meet a politician who has just alighted from an airplane; the reporter who is on a wired boat sailing into a remote mangrove to find out the extent of damage flood has wrecked in the area is trying to satisfy the society by informing the members of the society on what is happening around them.

The function of news gathering and news dissemination has not been a rosy one for the journalists. From the inception of journalism and newspaper publication in Nigeria.

There has been a cat and mouse relationship between the press and the governments of all ages, whether military or civilian, except when the press allows itself to be cajoled, used and manipulated by the government to suit its whims and caprices.

The banning of newspapers and detention of journalist by government especially in the third world countries have been an old story.

For example the Nigeria government has at one time or the another banned or closed down most of the newspaper and magazine houses in Nigeria.