To halt the downward slide, a vibrant media is a necessity

– THE deadly attack at the Boston Marathon in the United States on April 18 – meant to impress that endurance begets success

was disrupted by two bombs near the finishing line and turned the celebration into a bloody scene of destruction.

Should the media have looked the other way when the deadly attack at the Boston Marathon happened on April 18?

The alleged bombers surely did not find the media’s determination to uphold the public’s right to know of their dastardly deed amusing.

Wrongdoers never sing praises for those shining the spotlight on their underhand schemes. Least impressed are honourable members hiding behind their good offices in the face of exposure.

Such is the world we live in. The unrelenting gorier side of it keeps finding its way into newspapers, giving rise to broadcasts in our radios and invades living rooms through television screens.

The fault lies not in the media for telling it like it is, but in the people behind the wicked incidents.

Unpleasant as things might be, ugly reality does not disappear by turning a blind eye or deaf ear. Doing so paves the way for the rot to set in.

A rotten potato in the bag leads to the deterioration of the rest. In the end, the whole bag should be disposed of. So too can countries go to waste when the irredeemably rotten among us are allowed to peddle despicable excesses to be a norm of society.

To help halt the slide down a waste-bound slippery road, a vibrant media is a must. Pleading ignorance to flashing signals warning of impending dan- gers, to turn our country into a banana republic, is not bliss. Silence, under these circumstances, is not golden.

Blaming the media for simply placing the mirror before society to see its teetering image reflected is to bark up the wrong tree.

The choice for this nation is clear. It either faces up to the image in the mirror and makes that change, or, smash it in the idiotic hope that the bad image reflected will disappear with the bits of breaking glass.

Facing up to the image in the mirror and making a change will see the nation finding its way to redeem its image. Ignoring what we see is wrong will see the nation burying its head like an ostrich in the sand in suicidal denial until a shameful end.

Were the country to go that route, it would be defying all the reasons people gave to mount a liberation struggle that made South Africa the toast of the world in affirming the triumph of the human spirit over an evil system.

More than a mirror, the media is above all a watchdog. Where there is nothing untoward, dogs seldom bark. Where there is, the incorrigible culprits tremble for fear of being named and shamed.

Were all misdemeanours to be buried into silence, impending danger gets buoyed to forever go undetected.

The media is such a detector. But not all that barks is a dog worth watching over societal virtues that needs defending. Lapdogs exist without care in the world. Toothless bulldogs have no prospect for a bite at anything worth fighting for.

Hush puppies call for silence in the screaming hour of danger. For exposure of wrongdoing, count on the sniffer dogs to dig deep to raise the stink to high heaven.

For your peace of mind, know which watchdog to bet on.