Perspective: Under siege by themselves

Stephen Mpofu
JOURNALISTS from the independent section of the press in Zimbabwe have sprinted to the West wailing and holding their heads to claim that they were under siege from the government for discharging their duties as professionals.

The claim by a representative of the journalists, broadcast by the Voice Of America radio on Monday and probably replicated in other mass communication media elsewhere abroad, came in the wake of criticism of the so-called independent press by Secretary for Information, Media and Broadcasting Services, Cde George Charamba recently, for publishing stories bereft of truth, making such reports decidedly fictional.

That these journalists decided at all to run to mother to report their fears of imaginary reprisals can only suggest that their media organisation or organisations do not truly belong to this country but, rather, receive their modus operandi mandate from contemporary Western imperialism that holds a knife to the throat of the image and, indeed, survival of this country.

This pen does not in any way suggest that those in power in this country at this moment in time are immune from criticism for any wrong doing that is not only perceived but can be quantified with irrefutable evidence.

For if the press covered up any wrong doing by the government or by any organisation or individual in public or private office it will inevitably be negating its role of transforming society by shedding light to negative deeds for action to be taken to put things right for the good of the nation as a whole.

What this pen suggests is that journalists should not base their reports on imaginary wrong doing but that they should work to the rule of the profession which commands that scribes should double check their facts to be sure that they are correct and truthful before churning out reports to audiences some of whom are so gullible they will receive anything in the printed word as gospel truth.

Journalists who feed unsuspecting audiences with one swallow-summer stories, or on lies-as-facts stories do not only do a disservice to the public but, worse still, they do an injustice to a profession that touts itself as being noble.

That nobility is based not on lies as factual bricks with which to build a news story even though the facts may have no truth about them whatsoever.

Those writers who underwent training at a good institution will have learnt that journalism sits balanced on a tripod as an Art, a Science and a Humanity, the latter suggesting that news stories are based on humankind.

The scientific aspect of journalism means that stories should be based on facts that are verified as truthful in the same way as the result of a scientific experiment that will be replicated in a similar experiment carried out anywhere else in the world.

Journalism as an art presupposes that stories must be couched in an aesthetic or beautiful manner in order to arrest the interest of the reader for communication to succeed.

It is therefore obvious to anyone that a pot of food will not successfully cook sitting on one hearth stone in the same way as an unbalanced story will not successfully communicate a message.

There is also the danger of journalists becoming so absorbed with or by a political organisation with which they sympathise or of which they are members.

A golden rule exists in journalism and it is that scribes should become apolitical, or not be interested or involved in politics.

But where such a detachment, or insularity becomes difficult the journalist can still maintain a modicum of neutrality through self-distanciation from a political organisation.

However, some journalists today breach their unprinted code of neutrality by allowing themselves to be used by opposition parties or by foreign powers in demonising sitting governments or ruling political parties either for money or for cheap publicity mileage which often boomerangs against the image of the writers as well as of the organisations that employ them.

When such scribes are criticised for non-objective journalism, they are simply being forearmed against the enemy placing clubs or knobkerries in the hands of these professionals to bludgeon the image not only of those in power but also of the country as a whole including their own, in the eyes of the outside world.

But surely no patriotic Zimbabwean journalist wishes to have his or her country tarred with negative perceptions purveyed by the writers themselves to foreigners whom this country needs as investors, tourists or friends in times of dire need?