Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0009-0003-3439-0852

Semester

Spring

Date of Graduation

2023

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MS

College

Reed College of Media

Department

Not Listed

Committee Chair

Steve Urbanski

Committee Member

Joseph Jones

Committee Member

Ashton Marra

Committee Member

Mason Moseley

Abstract

This study explores the ethical dilemmas Nigerian freelance journalists face and their implications for their work. It will use in-depth interviews with select freelance journalists. Several studies have established that ethical concerns are rife in—and indeed the bane of—journalism in Nigeria. However, these pieces of research reflect the reality across conventional newsrooms, where, ideally, there is some organizational structure and support. No scholarly attention has been given to freelance journalists, otherwise known as entrepreneurial journalists, due to their autonomous nature, to understand the ethical dilemmas they may be entangled in primarily. This study seeks to address this gap in research. Two relevant ethical frameworks guide this study: the social responsibility theory of the press and the ethics of care. To interrogate the issue of ethical dilemmas, it explores six of the ethical concerns common in Nigeria's mediascape: Brown Envelope Syndrome (BES), public relations, media ownership (and government control), press freedom, patriarchy, and Covid-19 precarity (which recently became a factor due to the novel coronavirus pandemic and had a significant effect on the media industry worldwide).

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