Media Ethics and News Media Financing in a Fledgling Economy- A Case of the Gambia

Abstract

Purpose: This paper examines how media ethics and news media financing interact in the setting of a nascent economy. The study focuses on the significance of ethical standards in journalism and how obstacles to funding might have a detrimental effect on them. Issues interrogated include how media ethics are violated, how financial hardships have contributed to the phenomena, the causes of the paucity of funding, and how the news media can navigate the daunting terrain of shrinking financial resources. Methodology: The study collected data from both primary and secondary sources. While interviews with 15 seasoned media professionals provided the primary data, recent literature provided the secondary data. Findings: The results of this study reveal that many media organisations are underpaying their employees, failing to facilitate skills acquisition training for staff, lacking editorial guidelines, hiring underqualified staff to cut costs, and failing to adequately provide the staff with the logistics needed for news gathering, all of which compromise professionalism and drive the phenomena of sensational reporting, partisanship (especially during elections), one-sided reporting, inadequate source attribution, language decorum, inaccurate reporting, lack of skills for covering highly sensitive topics like those relating to children, domestic violence, court proceedings, etc., invasion of people's privacy, and acceptance of freebies by journalists are all examples of how ethical standards are broken. Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: Innovative advertising campaigns aimed at small businesses, grants for the promotion of current development issues, the creation of content that would draw viewers from outside of Gambia, increased media organization collaboration to cut production costs, the creation of high-quality content, being more inventive to create content that various populations can relate to, and the Media Council's advocacy for government subvention to news media organization’s were suggested as solutions to funding challenges faced by the media.