PARTISAN TABLOIDS AND THEIR TALES BY MOONLIGHT

PARTISAN TABLOIDS AND THEIR TALES BY MOONLIGHT

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𝐵y A 𝑁 I 𝐸 T 𝐼 E U 𝑆 E 𝑁

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🔸️Many years ago, precisely in 1999, I founded an evening newspaper in Lagos called ALIVE. Of course, I was the publisher and Managing Director.

🔸️Social media was not born yet. The Internet was just an infant but those were the heydays of popular evening newspapers in Lagos, screaming everyday with alarming headlines, designed primarily to grab attention and entice commuters stuck in the notorious Lagos traffic jam.

🔸️Before ALIVE hit the newsstands, Lagosians were familiar with Evening Times, the evening edition of Daily Times, Guardian Express, the evening edition of The Guardian, and PMNews, the evening edition of THE NEWS magazine, published by the Independent Communications Network Limited, ICNL.

🔸️Coming from the background of the legendary Newswatch Magazine, where I was the General Editor, my evening newspaper was bold, investigative and I confess, often cocksure and self-righteous, more so because I had just become what Americans call a ‘person of faith’.

🔸️Our take off print run was 13,000 copies daily. We were ambitious to take over the evening newspaper market and dominate it.

🔸️Along the line, a senior reporter of ALIVE stumbled into an ‘exclusive’ story about an alleged serious malfeasance of a top politician in the city. He backed it up with what appeared to be authentic documents.

🔸️My Editor, a former reporter in The Guardian Newspaper, jumped at the story and ALIVE ran a weeklong daily ‘exclusive’ stories on various dimensions of the alleged malefeasance. Our sales figure hit the roof. That entire week, we smiled our way to the bank, happy that our long awaited breakthrough had finally arrived.

🔸️But unknown to us in ALIVE, we had fallen prey to the political enemy of the top politician we were blasting. This political enemy, a well known politician too, was hell bent on rubbishing and taking down the man that ALIVE was literally persecuting.

🔸️One evening, a respected colleague, Bayo Onanuga, the then Managing Director of PMNews, and present Special Adviser to the President of Nigeria on Information and Strategy, arrived in my office at #20, Association Avenue, Ilupeju, Lagos. He said to me point blank: ‘Oldboy, you have misfired. Kill that story. Move past it or at least soft pedal a bit’.

🔸️I took a look at his face. I saw sincerity. He pushed back his seat, pulled out a stack of documents from his handbag to prove us wrong. I had been a manager of news and newsmen over the years in many publications. I sent for my Editor and reporter who spearheaded our story.

🔸️Quickly, we spotted the faultlines in our story. The newsroom dictum of ‘if in doubt leave out’ was not followed to the letter. It was the end of our report on the matter.

🔸️And it was at a time like this: the season of intense political anomie.

🔸️Times like this are no ordinary times in the media space in Nigeria and beyond. Whether it is in the social or serious media, the barbs of fake news and mudslinging are flying everywhere with alarming banner headlines that are at best deceptive and at worse total falsehood.

🔸️By now, many are familiar with waking up in the morning to see a colourful front page of a tabloid with alarming headlines, generously sent free of charge to their WhatsApp inboxes, Facebook tags or X newsfeeds.

🔸️Some headlines may give you a heart attack, but you may never see the details or contents of the banner headlines to read. Of course they may not even exist.

🔸️Beware!

The worst culprits are the unregulated online newspapers and the partially regulated one-man newspapers, owned and published, maybe by a career printer or business center operator.

🔸️Beware!

🔸️Recently, a simulated newspaper front page falsely claimed the ADC’s presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar promised to give every Nigerian a “weekly bag of rice” if elected.

🔸️Another fabricated front page claimed President Bola Tinubu had declared that students who fail to repay their student loans would face “life imprisonment”. These were clearly the handiworks of the hyper-partisan tabloids and portals.

🔸️Earlier this month, October 2026, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, along with the entire political class in Nigeria were thrown into a panic mode, by an online portal that released a fake list of governorship candidates across six States, namely Zamfara, Gombe, Delta, plateau, Yobe, and Kano.

🔸️INEC had to issue urgent disclaimers, debunking a widely shared, fraudulent online publication. Earlier in the election cycle here in Nigeria, ‘bad media actors’ also circulated a fully fabricated, inaccurate election timetable to deliberately confuse political parties and voters.

🔸️Akwa Ibom Governor, Pastor Umo Eno, who by any standard, is already a very accomplished Governor in just three years, has been the target of persistence and considerable persecution by a particular tabloid in the State.

🔸️It is common for the newspaper called The Guide, to misguide the public and publish screaming headlines that say things like: HOW UMO ENO FRUSTRATES MBOHO MKPARAWA IBIBIO, GOVERNOR ENO’S LGA CHAIRMAN, IN-LAW RATED LOW…, TINUBU REJECTS PLEA BY UMO ENO TO COMMISSION PROJECTS; WHO IS AKWA IBOM GOVERNOR? ENOBONG UWAH (the SSG) DECLARES SELF DE FACTO GOVERNOR; PROPHET ITUEN WARNS UMO ENO…

🔸️The latest screaming headline and riders by the same newspaper says: ‘EXCLUSIVE: GOVERNOR UMO ENO SUSPENDS, LOCKS OUT DAUGHTER FROM OFFICE OF FIRST LADY…ORDERS WITHDRAWAL OF OFFICIAL CAR, SECURITY, AS HELEN CROPS OUT FATHER’S IMAGE IN CRYPTIC SOCIAL MEDIA POST, HELEN RUNS TO REMI TINUBU FOR INTERVENTION…

🔸️Incredible!

🔸️The Commissioner of Information, Aniekan Umanah, lost his patience at long last with the tabloid and debunked the stories in its entirety as “spurious, beyond the lines of professional ethics”. He challenged the tabloid to produce the alleged suspension letter or any evidence to substantiate its claims. None so far!

🔸️The Commissioner of Housing, Dr. Henry Archibong said the office of the First Lady now occupied by Mrs Helen Eno Obareki, her daughter, who coordinates the office since the demise of the mother two years ago, has been long due for renovation.

🔸️“As officially requested, I personally visited the First Lady’s Office in the company of my permanent secretary and staff of Julius Berger, the company that handles maintenance services of the Governor’s Lodge, to assess the needed repairs…

🔸️“The roof is leaking, the ceilings and cupboards are broken down, the walls may not have been repainted probably since the place was built… From what we saw, that place requires complete overhaul and we are processing needed documentation for approvals before renovation begins in earnest”, the Housing commissioner said.

🔸️A communications lecturer in the University of Uyo described such negative portrayal of Governor Eno by the particular newspaper as ‘typical political insults’.

🔸️He defined political insults as ‘a verbal or written tool by politicians and their agents to humiliate, or degrade a political opponent, party, or their ideas… The purpose is to discredit a rival, rally supporters through shared contempt, or gain public and media attention’.

🔸️These fake newspapers come in various types. Operators in the media ecosystem know them by their ‘unprofessional names’ but the danger is that the majority of voters in the rumour mill would swallow their fairy tales, unquestionably, hook, line and sinker; lock, stock, and barrel.

🔸️A political leader close to Governor Eno says the Governor may not be worried about the impact of fake news headlines on his electoral fortunes which is certain, as the impact of fabricated news on his young children.

🔸️“Why are they always targeting the children for no just cause? Why do they never report the good works of our governors until they leave office. Why do we always persecute and attempt to kill our prophets? The impact of this social malaise could be demoralising to our leaders and sometimes slow down the development pace of our State”, the stalwart said.

🔸️Similarly, the impact and implications for the hyper-partisan news organisations themselves, are multifarious and sometimes devastating. They range from legal to financial and from loss of credibility to sudden disappearance from the newsstands. The boomerang is inevitable and inescapable

🔸️Examples in the UK, US, Turkey, and even in Nigeria, show that news organisations that habitually publish veritably false or heavily distorted stories are often seen by the public as ‘partisan rags’, destined for the dustbin.

🔸️Globally, their lifespan and shelf life is short.

🔸️Maybe this is a subject for another day.

🔸️Soon!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
𝐵y A 𝑁 I 𝐸 T 𝐼 E U 𝑆 E 𝑁
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
🔸️Many years ago, precisely in 1999, I founded an evening newspaper in Lagos called ALIVE. Of course, I was the publisher and Managing Director.

🔸️Social media was not born yet. The Internet was just an infant but those were the heydays of popular evening newspapers in Lagos, screaming everyday with alarming headlines, designed primarily to grab attention and entice commuters stuck in the notorious Lagos traffic jam.

🔸️Before ALIVE hit the newsstands, Lagosians were familiar with Evening Times, the evening edition of Daily Times, Guardian Express, the evening edition of The Guardian, and PMNews, the evening edition of THE NEWS magazine, published by the Independent Communications Network Limited, ICNL.

🔸️Coming from the background of the legendary Newswatch Magazine, where I was the General Editor, my evening newspaper was bold, investigative and I confess, often cocksure and self-righteous, more so because I had just become what Americans call a ‘person of faith’.

🔸️Our take off print run was 13,000 copies daily. We were ambitious to take over the evening newspaper market and dominate it.

🔸️Along the line, a senior reporter of ALIVE stumbled into an ‘exclusive’ story about an alleged serious malfeasance of a top politician in the city. He backed it up with what appeared to be authentic documents.

🔸️My Editor, a former reporter in The Guardian Newspaper, jumped at the story and ALIVE ran a weeklong daily ‘exclusive’ stories on various dimensions of the alleged malefeasance. Our sales figure hit the roof. That entire week, we smiled our way to the bank, happy that our long awaited breakthrough had finally arrived.

🔸️But unknown to us in ALIVE, we had fallen prey to the political enemy of the top politician we were blasting. This political enemy, a well known politician too, was hell bent on rubbishing and taking down the man that ALIVE was literally persecuting.

🔸️One evening, a respected colleague, Bayo Onanuga, the then Managing Director of PMNews, and present Special Adviser to the President of Nigeria on Information and Strategy, arrived in my office at #20, Association Avenue, Ilupeju, Lagos. He said to me point blank: ‘Oldboy, you have misfired. Kill that story. Move past it or at least soft pedal a bit’.

🔸️I took a look at his face. I saw sincerity. He pushed back his seat, pulled out a stack of documents from his handbag to prove us wrong. I had been a manager of news and newsmen over the years in many publications. I sent for my Editor and reporter who spearheaded our story.

🔸️Quickly, we spotted the faultlines in our story. The newsroom dictum of ‘if in doubt leave out’ was not followed to the letter. It was the end of our report on the matter.

🔸️And it was at a time like this: the season of intense political anomie.

🔸️Times like this are no ordinary times in the media space in Nigeria and beyond. Whether it is in the social or serious media, the barbs of fake news and mudslinging are flying everywhere with alarming banner headlines that are at best deceptive and at worse total falsehood.

🔸️By now, many are familiar with waking up in the morning to see a colourful front page of a tabloid with alarming headlines, generously sent free of charge to their WhatsApp inboxes, Facebook tags or X newsfeeds.

🔸️Some headlines may give you a heart attack, but you may never see the details or contents of the banner headlines to read. Of course they may not even exist.

🔸️Beware!

The worst culprits are the unregulated online newspapers and the partially regulated one-man newspapers, owned and published, maybe by a career printer or business center operator.

🔸️Beware!

🔸️Recently, a simulated newspaper front page falsely claimed the ADC’s presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar promised to give every Nigerian a “weekly bag of rice” if elected.

🔸️Another fabricated front page claimed President Bola Tinubu had declared that students who fail to repay their student loans would face “life imprisonment”. These were clearly the handiworks of the hyper-partisan tabloids and portals.

🔸️Earlier this month, October 2026, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, along with the entire political class in Nigeria were thrown into a panic mode, by an online portal that released a fake list of governorship candidates across six States, namely Zamfara, Gombe, Delta, plateau, Yobe, and Kano.

🔸️INEC had to issue urgent disclaimers, debunking a widely shared, fraudulent online publication. Earlier in the election cycle here in Nigeria, ‘bad media actors’ also circulated a fully fabricated, inaccurate election timetable to deliberately confuse political parties and voters.

🔸️Akwa Ibom Governor, Pastor Umo Eno, who by any standard, is already a very accomplished Governor in just three years, has been the target of persistence and considerable persecution by a particular tabloid in the State.

🔸️It is common for the newspaper called The Guide, to misguide the public and publish screaming headlines that say things like: HOW UMO ENO FRUSTRATES MBOHO MKPARAWA IBIBIO, GOVERNOR ENO’S LGA CHAIRMAN, IN-LAW RATED LOW…, TINUBU REJECTS PLEA BY UMO ENO TO COMMISSION PROJECTS; WHO IS AKWA IBOM GOVERNOR? ENOBONG UWAH (the SSG) DECLARES SELF DE FACTO GOVERNOR; PROPHET ITUEN WARNS UMO ENO…

🔸️The latest screaming headline and riders by the same newspaper says: ‘EXCLUSIVE: GOVERNOR UMO ENO SUSPENDS, LOCKS OUT DAUGHTER FROM OFFICE OF FIRST LADY…ORDERS WITHDRAWAL OF OFFICIAL CAR, SECURITY, AS HELEN CROPS OUT FATHER’S IMAGE IN CRYPTIC SOCIAL MEDIA POST, HELEN RUNS TO REMI TINUBU FOR INTERVENTION…

🔸️Incredible!

🔸️The Commissioner of Information, Aniekan Umanah, lost his patience at long last with the tabloid and debunked the stories in its entirety as “spurious, beyond the lines of professional ethics”. He challenged the tabloid to produce the alleged suspension letter or any evidence to substantiate its claims. None so far!

🔸️The Commissioner of Housing, Dr. Henry Archibong said the office of the First Lady now occupied by Mrs Helen Eno Obareki, her daughter, who coordinates the office since the demise of the mother two years ago, has been long due for renovation.

🔸️“As officially requested, I personally visited the First Lady’s Office in the company of my permanent secretary and staff of Julius Berger, the company that handles maintenance services of the Governor’s Lodge, to assess
the needed repairs…

🔸️“The roof is leaking, the ceilings and cupboards are broken down, the walls may not have been repainted probably since the place was built… From what we saw, that place requires complete overhaul and we are processing needed documentation for approvals before renovation begins in earnest”, the Housing commissioner said.

🔸️A communications lecturer in the University of Uyo described such negative portrayal of Governor Eno by the particular newspaper as ‘typical political insults’.

🔸️He defined political insults as ‘a verbal or written tool by politicians and their agents to humiliate, or degrade a political opponent, party, or their ideas… The purpose is to discredit a rival, rally supporters through shared contempt, or gain public and media attention’.

🔸️These fake newspapers come in various types. Operators in the media ecosystem know them by their ‘unprofessional names’ but the danger is that the majority of voters in the rumour mill would swallow their fairy tales, unquestionably, hook, line and sinker; lock, stock, and barrel.

🔸️A political leader close to Governor Eno says the Governor may not be worried about the impact of fake news headlines on his electoral fortunes which is certain, as the impact of fabricated news on his young children.

🔸️“Why are they always targeting the children for no just cause? Why do they never report the good works of our governors until they leave office. Why do we always persecute and attempt to kill our prophets? The impact of this social malaise could be demoralising to our leaders and sometimes slow down the development pace of our State”, the stalwart said.

🔸️Similarly, the impact and implications for the hyper-partisan news organisations themselves, are multifarious and sometimes devastating. They range from legal to financial and from loss of credibility to sudden disappearance from the newsstands. The boomerang is inevitable and inescapable

🔸️Examples in the UK, US, Turkey, and even in Nigeria, show that news organisations that habitually publish veritably false or heavily distorted stories are often seen by the public as ‘partisan rags’, destined for the dustbin.

🔸️Globally, their lifespan and shelf life is short.

🔸️Maybe this is a subject for another day.

🔸️Soon!