David Hundeyin: The danger of a “single journalism”

In a remarkable freak of nature, we now have “journalists,” who publicly endorse the mocking of a veteran journalist’s assassination, simply to troll the dead’s relatives for — being the journalist who pointed out that a ragtag assembly of unfounded, bigoted sentences, aimed at causing public panic about the Coronavirus pandemic is not journalism, and will never be.

David Hundeyin openly supplied information, aiming to bolster that used by a troll to mock the circumstances under which my father Godwin Agbroko died, and in a manic frenzy, continued to publicly justify his cohort’s gobbledygook on various other timelines. The catalyst for David’s frothy seethe was this thread I wrote, one seeking better standards for Nigerian journalism.

It appears that we are breeding a type of hybrid “journalist” in Nigeria — the specie who devotes time to burnishing their 280-character image, rather than uniformly upholding the tenets of the same profession from which they extract their livelihood and its perks. I mean the outrage-specked tweets they fashion to rake in the DMs, which become the spanner that wrangles a pass into the networking events, which are then fashioned into the speculum that paves access to visas, fellowships and the speaking engagements they splutter through.

I use the word uniformly to be exact — David Hundeyin epitomises this type of “journalist.”

This is a creature (one I have never seen physically), but whom a longstanding client requested I oversee on some four briefs, between August 2015 to 2016 — in that time, David and I shared emails, and possibly other telecommunication.

The same David tweeted support to me during the period of my Emmy nomination announcement in 2019 — I then followed him.

I say these things to demonstrate that prior contact and the DMs were there — David had the chance to approach me and ascertain the spirit with which I wrote that critique, and why the global panic around Coronavirus made it necessary for a public assessment.

Rather, David huffed and puffed, rocked and tuffed with his malnourished Afro puff and…I only became aware of his irrational state when he referred to someone as a “Bavarian Kemi Olunloyo.”

I was alerted by concerned friends. However, I believe in honour. You have something to say? Say it to my face. If I haven’t said it to your face, nor you to mine? I will truly believe everything is okay.

Therefore, I still approached David privately, asking him pointedly who he was referring to, but this caricature imagining itself a man was unable to muster the nerve to speak up, loud and clear. Rather, the flimsy pinata chose to mount himself on Twitter, where he would later run amok, spouting puerile though weak jabs via the septic crevice he calls a mouth.

As I write this, David has yet to mention me by name, despite going all over online and offline with words behind my back — I also discovered moments ago, just as I was about to tag him, that he unfollowed me. This is telling — the huge dollops of cowardice remain greater than the splash of hate that comprises the cocktail David drinks of and is made of.

What journalist will consider it okay to mock Miss Olunloyo, an individual who bravely revealed her struggle with PTSD for the benefit of us all, just to garner retweets at a perceived enemy?

What journalist will by day claim to be fighting government oppression, yet vehemently hate another person and base their hate on the person pointing out the need to not turn Nigerians against each other with Fake News in these dire times of Coronavirus?

What type of journalist endorses the use of an innocent man who DIED for journalism, as fodder for Retweets?

What is next, if David ever attains a tenured role outside the rags that currently indulge the perpetually unverified, lawsuit minefields he flogs on the Internet? Will he then become a DJ of sorts, spinning the lives of readers’ relatives on the worn discs of Twitter when they exercise their right to say they do not care for what he offers?

The only reason I take issue with David Hundeyin’s conduct is its link to journalism. He apparently feels it is acceptable for a journalist’s family members to be abused once that journalists speaks up against shoddy alphabets regurgitated into paragraphs and slapped with the tag “investigative journalism.”

If Godwin Agbroko dying for journalism is not off-limits for the faux-journalism Twitter brigade, then who’s next? Dele Giwa? Kris Imodibe?

Everyone must be attacked with vitriol, and unless you agree with David, then surely you are against David, even when the goal is to give Nigerians the journalism they deserve.

David, how then can you claim to be different from what you claim to fight, when you harbour the same unbridled response to professional issues, and actively encourage and contribute to cooking up harmful, erroneous information about people on social media?

That borders on blackmail aimed to supress the right of others to criticise.

Therefore, because the fact that my only “crime” against you was critiquing that faeces in text form and consigning it to the pit latrine from whence you birthed it? I can loudly tell you that you are a disgrace to the very profession you feed of.

Godwin Agbroko was imprisoned on several occasions for his reporting and editorial oversight, something which contributed to your father knowing what was going on, during a military regime.

I lost months at a time away from my father, so that yours could watch you grow into anything other than the mass of frenzied hate you currently are.

To this day, Godwin Agbroko’s wife, my mother, continues to fold Naira notes the same way she did so it could be smuggled into his cell — just so he could bribe his way into reduced torture. It is an involuntary habit; much the same way your limited brain cells go on extended vacations out of habit, in exchange for the ephemeral high of Twitter.

So, when this man gets killed, years later, shot in the streets and left to bleed to death because he was a journalist?

I don’t expect anyone who claims to be a journalist, activist or whatever your current cloak is, and still lives in the same country Godwin bled and died for, to consider the manner of his death a fitting dish for serving in the putrid clay-pot that is your Twitter kingdom.

I don’t see how you haven’t gone to have your certificate reissued to read “Janus,” as opposed to David — how many faces can you possibly have?

You ask the government to take criticism and do so with vitriol, but shift gears and develop intolerance to criticism of an article? Intolerance such that the memory of an innocent dead man must be sullied until you orgasm via textual intercourse with your fellow Twitter fiends?

Your destructive genre of journalism, where people are encouraged to hound the government by speculation, actual news, fake news and abuse yet none must speak to your unprofessional tactics even when they do so charitably, will not become the standard for my country.

Your garrulous brand of journalism fights governments for not prioritising demographics, yet mocks people with mental health problems, and those who have contracted COVID-19 for sport.

Actual journalists should not suffer being hounded by you as docile, just because they prefer to be more measured or ethical in their accessing and interpretation of news. Actual journalism must not suffer just because you cannot decide to whether to give full allegiance to the horse on which you placed all your bets when you left PR — you want to feed fat on the royalty journalism confers, but want none of the responsibility.

If you have gone as far as amplifying the attempts to impugn the memory of a journalist, and moreso a journalist who is my Father, then I am certain there are no depths you can descend further to that would shock me. This one didn’t, actually — the reason you gave, is what did.

Thankfully, David, you remain in the minority — quite like your grimy tactics.

In a country where “journalists” like you show more tolerance of unethical behaviour than of your imagined enemies, I will proudly stand up for what is right in this profession that has given me way more than I sacrificed and continue to sacrifice.

I will continue to speak and deploy my voice at will against your singular brand of “Lessnalism,” where you and your ilk give LESS of the craft, and a glut of your biased, panic-enhancing, foreign patronage-seeking paragraphs couched in sensational grammar.

Because your singularly performative journalism is not all journalism — and in any ethical society, will never be.

Also, it’s what Godwin Agbroko would want.

Remember him? That’s the PEN PRIZE winner who birthed an Emmy Nominee.

His sacrifice alongside others for this profession, is why you are desperate to wear the gleaming cloak of “journalist,” even though your insipid approaches bloat your innards and fattens your misplaced ego, denying you of anything near a perfect fit.

By the way — your tenuous argument of people wanting government appointments won’t hold water whenever I exercise my rights to an opinion on your unethical machinations — Godwin Agbroko declined TWO government appointments, and I myself declined one half a decade ago.

You also can’t fall into character and foam at the mouth about being under cyber-attack, David.

So, you’ll need to find something else to run with, going forward.

Or continue trying to shoe-horn yourself into that cloak, to the guffaws and fleeting adulation of the faceless, feckless Twitter hordes you daily perform for.