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AS a newspaper, we are bound by ethics which guide our profession and this means that we have to be as accurate, in our reporting, as we possibly can be.
There is no substitute for the truth.
Every story that we publish must be true and anything that falls short of that test should never get space in our newspaper.
But, even if it’s true, it must also pass other tests.
We must ensure that it is fair to the parties we are writing about and this means that we should always try to get the other side of the story.
We should always try to get comment from both parties and, in the event that we are covering court cases, we should not dramatise what happens in court but stick, as much as we can, to the facts presented in the testimonies.
We should NEVER ever take sides in any of the subjects that we report about.
We are allowed to take a stand, like saying that as a newspaper we are anti-drug abuse and we will pursue those who are peddling drugs, and messing up the future of our children, in a vigorous way.
This means that, at times, we won’t be balanced, in the way we are tackling this monster, because we have taken a stand that we are anti-drug and substance abuse.
One of the issues, which we have taken a stand on, telling ourselves that we have to fight this battle and win it, at all cost, is one against the sexual abuse of our women.
For us, it even gets worse when those who have been abused are young girls who are just trying to find where they fit in our society.
This is the generation which will determine the future of our country, long after many of us have gone to rest in our graves.
So, for us, to see these kids being abused by men, who are supposed to be their fathers, guardians and protectors, it’s something we will never accept.
It’s a fight we committed ourselves to fight, until the last drop of our blood, because we believe that it’s a very good fight. We take a lot of pride in the fact that we are the only newspaper which followed the arrest, trial and conviction of Ronnie Ngwenya, the former night club manager, who transformed himself into a monster and preyed on his 13-year-old niece.
We ensured that the story should never die and we received a lot of threats but we stuck to our job and kept on writing about it.
On Tuesday, Ngwenya’s High Court appeal was dismissed, which means he has to serve his 12-year prison sentence.
For us, the satisfaction comes from knowing that this will send a powerful message, to others who are thinking of abusing such girls, that severe punishment awaits them.
Mathew Masinge
Online Reporter