New report identifies financial fragility, others as key challenges for media practitioners

A new report compiled by Carpe Diem Solutions Publishes Practitioner Intelligence has identified financial fragility as one of the key challenges the media and its practitioners are facing in an evolving social and economic environment.

Other challenges, according to the report, include editorial compromise, the quiet pressure of self-censorship, and a communications industry that too often treats media relations as a transaction when what is needed is a relationship.

Carpe Diem Solutions is a reputation management and strategic communications agency based in Lagos, Nigeria. The agency which was founded in 2021, operates at the intersection of reputation, culture, and influence, providing strategic counsel to institutional and premium-brand clients across financial services, FMCG, infrastructure, social impact, creative industries, technology, and government.

The report which is on ‘The Future of Media & PR Collaboration in Nigeria’ draws on responses from journalists across 17 media organisations and reveals five structural findings that challenge how Nigeria’s communications industry engages with the press.

It is anchored in structured responses from working journalists and media practitioners across print, digital, broadcast, and independent platforms in Nigeria, and is combined with the most current global data on press freedom, institutional trust, AI adoption in newsrooms, and media economics.

Titled ‘The Voices Behind the Headlines,’ the initiative began as a question: on World Press Freedom Day, what do Nigeria’s working journalists think about the state of their profession, the tools reshaping it, and the communications industry they navigate daily?

Edward Israel-Ayide, Founder and CEO, Carpe Diem Solutions Limited, noted that  the responses were candid in ways that surprised even the research team, with journalists speaking of financial fragility among others as challenges their profession faces.

“We publish this report not as a critique of either industry, but as an honest accounting of where both stand and what each owes the other. Nigeria’s media ecosystem is more resilient than it is often credited with. The journalists represented here are talented, committed, and clear-eyed about the conditions in which they work. They deserve communications partners who meet that standard. This report is our invitation to the industry to begin the conversation,” Israel-Ayide stated.

According to hm, the funding crisis is the story behind the stories, explaining that financial fragility is not a background condition in Nigerian journalism; it is the primary operating reality. The RSF 2026 World Press Freedom Index, published two days before this report, ranks Nigeria 112th out of 180 countries, still in the difficult category despite a ten-place improvement on 2025.

He noted that AI has entered Nigerian newsrooms, but the ethical infrastructure has not kept pace. The majority of practitioners use AI tools for research, editing, transcription, and writing assistance. Their concerns are consistent: laziness, the erosion of originality, and the growing potential for AI to serve disinformation at scale. Only 12 percent of audiences globally are comfortable with news made entirely by AI.

“Social media has restructured distribution without resolving the economic problem. Nigeria’s 107 million internet users represent a vast audience, but audience scale has not translated into media sustainability.

Influencers and journalists operate in different ecosystems, not competing ones. Professional journalism is distinguished by verification, editorial accountability, and objectivity. Influencers are not held to equivalent standards,” the Founder/CEO said.

He sees media-PR relationship as transactional when it should be structural, adding that the most actionable finding in the report is what journalists want from communications professionals: earlier engagement, tailored pitches that demonstrate genuine knowledge of their beat, transparency about sponsored content, and relationship-building that happens before either side needs anything from the other.