The media is no guardian of truth and morality
AFTER the presidency of Donald Trump, I am now more than convinced that the media is no guardian of truth and morality.
Moreover, I am now assured that nothing good can exist without God. With regards to Trump, respected journalists and media houses stooped to the lowest levels to prove lies as true and stop at nothing in ensuring that their own wishes, as a minority, triumph over the will of the majority.
All this happened in a so-called great democracy like the US.
On the home front, one can only marvel with sadness when some journalists who convinced South Africa that Thabo Mbeki was a heartless monster and Jacob Zuma was a saint and victim of political cruelty, today attribute the state of our country to Zuma.
Rather, the media continues to fool and convince everyone that their new darling and sweetheart President Cyril Ramaphosa was a sleepy innocent bystander for nine years, only to wake up as an upright and super-moral newcomer as president of the ANC and South Africa.
Zuma, despite all the flaws even before he was president, did not elect himself, neither did he protect himself from votes of no confidence in Parliament. Ramaphosa was part and parcel of that “ANC collective” and did not stand out as an enemy of immorality so that we should be convinced today that he and his media lackeys are moral and upright.
Another rotten trait in the media is the tendency to enter with dirty feet the work of God by publishing only negative stories about certain pastors and churches, impose their narrow human interpretations of the Bible above the justice and judgment of God and receive brown envelopes. The brown envelopes can only mean that there are greedy journalists who do anything for money including publishing lies and unfairly favouring certain individuals and organisations. Rarely do we ever see a front-page story about the dirty linen of the media and those it adores; that is like searching for teeth in a bird. The media can no longer be trusted as a guardian of our democracy nor can it be expected to report fairly. In most cases, if it is black people who run a media company they employ the legendary pull-down/belittle syndrome so common and widespread among black people and treat their black customers the same way black taxi operators and black government employees treat black commuters and citizens – with disgust and contempt. In the long run, though, these enjoyable habits of the media will bring destruction to the entire industry and the nail to that coffin will come from the same powers that be which the media favours today.
KHOTSO KD MOLEKO | MANGAUNG Bloemfontein