Media freedom comes with responsibility

Last week on Sunday, 03 May 2015, was International Media Freedom Day.

Most media practitioners in Zimbabwe and indeed the entire international media fraternity took time to celebrate the notion of media independence that many a journalist clamour for. Observers will quickly ask: Is media freedom a myth or it is real?

Coming back from school in the late 1970’s and mid 1980’s, we used to play plastic balls on the newly installed tarred road that was put there to help Rhodesian soldiers easily notice where the comrades had placed a landmine as the land mines wreaked havoc on the road to Jersey Estate from the farming town of Chipinge.

Hey, we used to arrive home with bloodied toes when they came in contact with the road in our kick and support game. Tired, we would trudge home, dejectedly; all of a sudden, one of us would cry, “Water! Water ahead!”

We would excitedly run forward, only to see another vision of water in front of us. It was a mirage. We learnt that after some time. It is like the horizon. One thinks that it is the end of the sky but is it? No, it is not.

Scientists talk about optical illusion. Is the media indeed an optical illusion? It is important to interrogate the notion of media freedom.

The media has always been used as a way to inform people of what is happening around them and also what transpired internationally.

Some scholars divide the media into the public, and private or independent media. These media academics contend the public media is controlled by government and the private one is of course controlled by shareholders and is independent of government control.

It is not invariably true that independent media companies are good while government controlled media are a lap dog of the government.

Gudykunst and Kim (1984) intimate that the mass media ‘’… explicitly and implicitly convey societal values, norms of behaviour…”

Therefore, the media doesn’t operate in a vacuum. In Zimbabwe, both the private and public media inform, educate and entertain the people. Sadly, at times, media houses go to extremes in their attempts to look relevant in the country. Ultimately, the public, that happen to be a major consumer of media products, chooses the right media outlet to accept in its life.

If we look at the international media, we find that it spotlights trouble spots and then hammer on that area until the relentless pressure is too much for the government which may capitulate and kow-tow to the whims of the Paris Club or the Bretton Woods institutions. Greece had to agree to the dictates of the Euro-zone when it faced the debt crisis some years ago.

In 1991, CNN, an American television company had Peter Arnett as its star reporter during the run-up to the Gulf War that pitted former allies, USA and Iraq after the Kuwait invasion by Saddam Hussein in August 1990. The American version of events made the whole world see the villainy in Saddam Hussein. So much for media freedom!

Did CNN, BBC and other monopolistic newspapers take heed of the Iraqi version of Kuwait’s situation based on the history of the two countries? No-one bothered as international capital’s interest took centre stage.

Some Europeans and Americans have a warped view of Africa; the Western media parodies Africa and the Conradian thinking of an African as a junior brother, pervades the psyche of many westerners much to the amusement of social bystanders. Some years ago, a member of the US Peace Corps who came and taught at our school confided in the writer that he never thought Africa had five star hotels.

‘’I never thought that there were television or radio stations in Zimbabwe. The moment we touched down at Harare International Airport, I was in a state of awe. We went to the US embassy and later toured various schools in the capital city as well as the rural areas. Most of the schools have piped water and electricity. To my greatest astonishment, a school that is almost four hundred kilometres from Harare (my school) has both piped water and electricity. Truly, that’s amazing.” With a shake of his head, the American went into the shower to have a cold one after we had played a small sided soccer game on the netball pitch.

Now, is the media in the western world unable to de-construct the myth that is Africa or it is happy with the status quo where people know the continent as one prevalent with disease, poverty and civil war riven? Someone stands to gain by this sordid picture of Africa.

It is the media’s mandate to put to the fore a fair, balanced, objective and accurate picture of events. In our situation, does one have to buy two newspapers to get to the bottom of anything? Is that media freedom at its best or it actually puts a dent on one’s pocket, monetarily?

Media freedom is a controversial subject depending on where one stands. Freedom comes with responsibilities which some media houses are unwilling to uphold.

World Media Freedom Day is a celebration of the diversity and plurality of media in Zimbabwe, Africa and the world at large. There are various newspaper titles in Zimbabwe offering the reader plenty of choice.

Regrettably, verbal wars between the big fish take place in the newspapers much to the chagrin of the media consumers. The media ought to take a developmental thrust if ever people are going to benefit from the presence of the media in their midst.

Notably, sensationalising news items has eroded the confidence of media consumers. All that is an attempt to grab the space among the media consumers and inevitably advertisers would come on board.

It is a double edged sword as newspapers continue to fold owing to a harsh operating environment. To be seen as relevant to the politics of the day, some media houses manufacture news and take half -truths or sheer falsehoods into hard news.

What is the outcome now? The general public loses confidence in that media outlet with the result that there would be a flight of advertisers and it will fold; media workers are again made redundant; the unemployment rate soars but sometimes the truth has to be sacrosanct in media reportage. Too often, the truth is made prisoner.

Ethics in journalism are taught at college or university. These are the compasses that guide the media personnel and media moguls tend to love shrewdness that arises when they put opinion makers in their back pockets.

The News of the world faced its demise some years ago hot on the heels of some media scandals that occurred in the United Kingdom.

The time has come for people to respect the media and accord it the Fourth Estate status alongside the Legislature, Executive and Judiciary. However, for that recognition to come on board, media owners and workers have to adhere to the code of conduct of journalists.

In the international arena, the media has not educated many people about the Arab-Israeli conflict; some people have just taken sides without knowing the origins of the conflicts. It has become a given that because the USA supports Israel then, ipso facto, Israel must be the fall guy. I, for one, believe that a large number of people are at sea about certain issues; thus, the media’s role can’t be over-emphasised.

The new world order in information is skewed against the Third World. The Murdochs of this world want the world to look at many issues using the Western lenses; consequently, if The Daily Mail publishes a travel warning from the Foreign Office against visiting a particular country, then it is a gospel truth and therefore, has to be cast in stone. Kenya and Zimbabwe are examples of countries that have received travel warnings by the UK or USA.

Strictly speaking, there are worse countries in terms of violence in the world that have never been recipients of those travel warnings which in simple language means if you go to that particular country, it is at your own risk. As a country, they are telling their citizens not to visit a country thereby depriving that nation of much needed foreign currency. It is a universal truth that freedom of expression is ultra-important in democratic discourse. However, freedom of expression comes with responsibilities. Many media outlets are drunk with the notion of criticising everything that is pushed by anyone they perceive as their enemy. Consequently, the truth is hidden from the media consumers who will be forced to use other media.

Media and Management scholars know how the grapevine can be a useful source of information. The black market thrived when the formal sector did not have the material at hand. In our country, we have all kinds of media. Hopefully, in the not too distant future, those who got radio licences will start operating and employ the media graduates who are roaming the streets.

It is the writer’s strong desire to have the vibrancy in radio broadcasting to extend to television. More importantly, all people must have access to radio and television for the democratisation of the media. More than 50% of Zimbabweans live in the rural area; with that in mind, the radio stations must reach all areas of the country for effective development to occur. So far, urban areas enjoy unlimited radio coverage; there must be a paradigm change; it is time that rural areas must have access to all radio stations.

Following the country wide consultations carried out by a ministerial task force, people said out aloud what they expect the media to be and as the people have spoken, we can’t go back to the time when media workers were polarised.

Media freedom is a fallacy. That old saying, ‘’He who pays the piper calls the tune,’’ is still relevant today as it was many years ago.

Clearly, how many media outlets have cried out loud for the down trodden who do not receive their salaries on time? We all know that there are workers who have several months’ salary arrears but spotlighting that appear to be anathema to many media workers including the independent media’ and it is incumbent upon the journalists to look at themselves as professionals.

Shareholder value is the norm in any company. People enter into business transactions to make a profit. There may be talk of editorial independence; that is in our dreams dear reader. An editor can’t ignore a nationalistic opinion piece if she is an editor of a public newspaper; by the same token, some independent newspapers take a jibe at the government every time when a calamity such as drought befell the nation. It is about the values that a media outlet has that determines the contents therein.

Is it possible to have a truly independent media that enjoys unfettered freedom? In my considered view, that is utopia. Free from what? You can’t be free from government control when you are a government media. Neither can you be free from shareholders’ control if you are a private newspaper or radio.

Do you think Econet Wireless can allow ungodly content to find its way in its systems? No, it won’t. Its business empire is premised on godly deeds and innuendoes. That is what happens to the media when it needs freedom that it barely deserves.