Abuse of media privilege
WHENEVER people talk about the media and journalism, phrases such as “media responsibility”, “media ethics”, “objective reporting”, “public interest”, “national interest” or “balanced coverage” are often highlighted as part of media ethics and professionalism.
However, these phrases often conceal the distinction between what ought to be done and what is done. Journalists are primarily ordinary people with ordinary brains, who eat ordinary food, relate to ordinary people, are affiliated to ordinary political beliefs, belong to religions and faiths, support specific soccer teams, and have preferences of their own in life.
They are not God-sent super-humans coming from the high heavens to report neutrally and fairly on the affairs of a world they do not belong to, much as most of them would prefer to publicly posture.
In terms of what ought to be done, the responsibility of media practitioners should be the same as that of any decent human being, though greater, when one considers that privilege confers opportunity, and opportunity confers moral responsibility.
It is not getting any better now that we have social media, where anyone with a gadget can post and publish anything online for the consumption of the whole world.
Hans Morgenthau, a founder of the international relations theory, condemns obedient intellectuals and journalists who adopt “a conformist subservience to those in power”. Morgenthau was not referring to political commissars of perceived “totalitarian” or “rogue” states; but to Western intellectuals and journalists - the self-anointed angels of democratic civilisation.
He said these journalists could hardly plead fear but only cowardice and blind subordination to power and the financial muscle of those who own the media houses they work for.
Our own journalists are no exceptions. They too are subordinates of power and financial muscle.
Before the advent of this social media craze we had rogue online “newspapers” like ZimDaily, ZimbabweMetro and ZimGossip now all defunct supposedly.
It was insanity unabated where anything could be written and published anytime about anyone.
This column was only a year or so old 11 years ago, when one Raymond Mhaka started a campaign targeted at creating international hate against this writer through an online paper they called ZimbabweMetro. The idea was to attract the attention of Australian immigration authorities and influence the possibility of deportation, or at the very least termination of this writer’s right of stay in Australia.
People like Petina Gappah and others were quoted in the stories without being consulted, and obviously without their knowledge or authority. Gappah had to issue a public statement dissociating herself from the unfounded stories. Her status in society was used to buttress a false story, and Mhaka did not care what she thought of it.
Mhaka even falsely quoted The Herald as having reported that this writer had publicly advocated for the “assassination” of MDC Members of Parliament, “in this life and in the life to come”. The idea was to incite Australian authorities into deporting a perceived assassin.
It is a decade later now, and we have daily doses of fake news on social media. We still have online “newspapers” that do not meet the standards expected of a professional publication. One such “newspaper” was virtually the MDC Alliance’s mouthpiece during the run-up to our July general election. Most of the coverage was through video footage of largely contrived story lines designed to either portray the MDC Alliance as invincible, or ZANU-PF as monstrous. There was doctoring of video footage to either exaggerate the crowds at Chamisa’s rallies, or to downsize the numbers at Mnangagwa’s rallies.
The editor of the publication even publicly wept online after the MDC Alliance and its leader Nelson Chamisa lost the election.
The baseness and rancour characteristic of the so-called news on such “newspapers” is phenomenal, but it would be unfair to blame it on the entire journalism fraternity.
Having said this, one wants to interrogate what it is that makes many journalists believe that they have super rights over all other mortals. Lawyers sometimes do the same, believing passing through a law school is in itself a super right to societal supremacy.
The profiles of journalists are written by journalists so, not surprisingly, they are portrayed as defenders of the right and the just, upholding the highest values, and confronting power and evil with admirable courage and integrity. We in the media fraternity call it speaking truth to power. Well, many times the record reveals a different picture.
The pattern of “conformist subservience” can be traced back to the earliest recorded history. It was the men who corrupted the youth of Athens with false gods who drank the hemlock, not those who worshipped the true gods of the doctrinal system. In the Bible, so many pages are devoted to prophets who condemned the crimes of those in power and all manner of immoral practices.
Today’s political prophets are labelled “leftists, Marxists or dissident intellectuals”. The biblical prophets were treated in a manner that needs no review. They were treated miserably and that is the norm for dissidents to the oppressive order of this world. This writer is no stranger to this kind of treatment and has no hope in the proclaimed formal democracies, because more often than not, even these are offended by the voice of reason.
In biblical times there were intellectuals and journalists or scribes who were greatly respected in the era of the prophets. These were the flatterers of the court.
Today’s powerful elites will always appoint their own flatterers, and that is why we now run our countries on the bootlicking ideology.
The equation of corruption is simple. Add together authority plus monopoly, and then subtract transparency, and you are happy and safe.
The gospels warn of such as “false prophets, who come in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves”. Today’s sheep’s clothing is the incessant preaching of democracy, freedoms, liberties and limitless human rights where man knows neither sorrow nor pain. We also preach zero-tolerance to corruption, often flanked by corruption mafia dons, and corruption continues to be tolerated.
We enjoy the rally type of democracy that some of our politicians say they will bring to the doorstep of everyone, if only they were to lead Government.
The dogmas that uphold the nobility of political power across the world are perhaps unassailable, despite the unending criticism that critics may persistently offer. John Adams, a US president two centuries ago, said this of power and privilege: “Power thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak.”
That is the deep root of the savagery, ignominy and self-righteousness that infects the imperial mentality and also, to a good extent, most structures of authority, including our own.
Reverence to that great soul of privilege and power is the normal stance of many media practitioners, who always want to appease power centres that provide their financial oiling.
There are two categories of journalists: the technocratic and objective journalists and the value-oriented journalists. The former are often responsible, sober, constructive and fair-minded while the later devote themselves to slander and vilification of those who are viewed as a threat to the power centre that oils the media houses that employ such journalists; or in Zimbabwe’s case, to the interests of a political party that ensures foreign donor funding; or such other similar incentives.
These are journalists who are wary of democratic involvement of underprivileged people; as was land reclamation in Zimbabwe. To them, these are improper initiatives that can create what has been called a “crisis in democracy.”
A study by liberal internationalists from the US going by the name Trilateral Commission concluded in 1975 that such initiatives by the underprivileged special groups were a threat to the world order and they actually called it “the threat of excessive democracy”.