Thursday, October 6, 2011
Journalists are like doctors, they must prescribe measures that help maintain societal calm
The fact that journalists are custodians of human rights and democracy is not coincidental but deliberate. In a liberal society, characterized by certain standards of moral consensus based on human values, it is very easy to assume the relativity of the former. The moral consensus in every society differs remarkably depending on their points of reference. However, there is no doubt that some values are human and are universally acceptable such as those of human rights and liberty. If journalists are there to guarantee that these rights are protected from abuse then – glory be to them.
However, if we examine the conventional journalistic approach in many African countries, then it is true that journalists have failed to carry out this noble responsibility by virtue of how they report issues. Journalists have often concentrated on sensationalism, immediacy and propaganda which has done very little to defend what they claim to be jealously protecting – liberty. Journalists, for instance, have reported conflicts as ‘a tug-of-war’ between two antagonists where one side risks being reported as losing. Of course, they would often argue that one of the values of news is that it is bizarre or unusual and conflicts fits perfectly within such definitions. Such conceptualizations of news which are embedded in Western models of journalism require rethinking.
Currently, classic examples on how the media plays a role in shaping public opinion is evident in their coverage of the Hague trials and the Mukuru Sinai fire disaster. The former has been given prominence due to its magnitude and the fact that public figures occupying public offices in Kenya have been implicated – these are important considerations in light of the news value criterion. However, what the media has failed to do and must do is to measure the degree of audience interest regarding the Hague question through audience research. Naturally, one would expect that audience have a high level of interest on the Hague coverage but only empirical evidence can guide the media in predicting the extent at which it would be useful to give the Hague prominence. Is there any additional human value for the media to represent the trials virtually all day every day?
Regarding the Sinai fire disaster, the media simply represented it as such – a disaster. The media extended this new and problematic or troubling event, which breached the taken for granted expectancies about how the world should be (consensual calm) by linking it to the forms of explanations which have served for all practical purposes. And so, the Sinai disaster is explained through analogies (similar other disasters) like the Bombolulu fire 2001, Sidindi in 1998 and the double tragedies at Nakumatt and Sachangwan tank accidents that claimed hundreds of lives in 2009. Emphasis is placed on drawing audience emotions through victims of the tragedies. Little effort is made to use the occasion as an opportunity to scrutinize and interrogate policy issues like urban human settlement and poverty alleviation to expose those politically responsible. However, episodes where the media covered the heroic experience of rescue workers must be commended.
The epistemological and ontological conceptions of journalism, which our media seem to religiously follow have often been a Western creation which fit perfectly in the west, especially, when the Western media reports on Africa. Consequently, they defeat the faculties of reason when journalists attempt to employ them when explaining events unfolding in Africa. It would seem that, if journalists in Africa reason through Western fashioned lenses to explain realities in Africa, then their reasoning would be naturally flawed. Timeliness, as a news values that underpin the Western journalistic ideology, betrays the need to go deep into the background of news stories to capture historical trajectories and other nuances. It leaves events superficially covered often stereotypically and sensationally.
The challenge therefore is for critical media scholars to come up with counter discourses to deconstruct the Western models of news. It would not help much for journalists and media academics to seat pretty and argue that “news should be unusual and timely,” which is actually a commercial approach. Any simple criticism about the manner in which the media reports issues in Africa should be given a surgical and critical appraisal, for this would act as a fertile ground for the possible conception of new ideologies.
Reporting that characterizes war journalism that blows issues out of proportion should be discouraged. There are obvious examples where reporting has helped escalate conflicts rather than reduce them in different parts of the world from conflicts such as those between India and Pakistan, Israel and Palestine, to the Invasion of Iraq and, most recently, those in Libya. Locally, the Kenyan media acted carelessly in trying to delicately balance public opinion and official electoral results in 2007 leading to post-election violence.
Reporting based on the conceptualization of elections as “winner takes all” is a time worn mentality that requires diagnosis. Journalists are like doctors, they should diagnose societal issues with the aim of prescribing measures that help maintain societal calm – peace and stability. Beyond the structural and ideological issues influencing journalists, individual journalists have psychological traits some of which are still linked to ideologies of journalistic practices such as objectivity, fairness and balance. The problem is that objectivity is a journalistic ‘myth’ that enables journalists avoid bias and be perceived as fair and is therefore questionable. Given that impartiality is endemic to humans, a deeper universal consciousness that surpasses journalistic ideologies is necessary– that of humanity itself. It is time for our journalists to embrace the same.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Yes we have e-tv, SABC and other news outlets in South Africa but a journalist is either good or evil
Call it conservatism or old-fashionism but psychological factors are still important variables that influence news content. Of course Prof. Tawana Kupe will take this ‘reality’ with a pinch of salt. This is due to the fact that, it would seem, psychological factors do not influence news content in a mutually exclusive manner nor do they exist in a vacuum. Therefore, they cannot be solely used to exhaustively explain the character of any journalist as an object of analysis.
To draw from the ancient Russian dramatist Denis Fonvisin, who was responsible for the construction of the Russian nationality in the 17th century Russia, we see relationships that can be comparable to South Africa and many African nations that realized nationalism much later in the 20th century given my arguments in this article. Like Peter the great, Fonvisin was keen about the realization of the Russian identity and nationality. Unlike Peter the great, who celebrated the idea of “the civil” or civilization from the West, especially the United Kingdom (the first nation on the planet), Fonvisin embodied the envy among Russians of the West. This was out of the realization that to be like them, then Russia has to match and probably even surpass them - as envisioned by Peter the great or Peter 1 (1682-1725).
There was influx of Western ideas and accompanied technology in Russia which Peter admired although he was not interested in cultural questions. When his vision to match and even surpass the West was not forthcoming and realizing that Russia could actually not match the West, resentiment was born beyond his control captured well by Fonvisin. However, this brought about cultural renaissance during the reigns of his successors.
The point I am making in this article is that one of the reasons why Fonvisin and many Russians were resented was the fact that the model conceived by the West was, according to him, not the best model for Russia to adopt. For when he personally visited France and after striving to be objective about his object of analysis (France), Fonvisin could not help but conclude that he saw more bad things happening in France than good ones, he saw many bad people than good ones. He further concluded that the same applies to everywhere in the world and neither the West nor Russia was an exception.
After observing the French, Fonvisin concluded that “a French man will never forgive himself if he misses an opportunity to cheat,” “his God was money”, that “what was considered a virtue in France was actually a vice in Britain” and that the French are good in nothing but the arts and culture (fashion). Having seen France, Fonvisin saw no reason to adopt the Western model but surely envied it. Nevertheless, the crisis of the forced noble identity created an identity gap and insecurity among the aritrocracy in Russia and the search for national identity became a state of emergency.
The search begun by, first and foremost, constructing the West as an object of ridicule especially in relation to the idea of civilization which Fonvisin, the dramatist, satirized so well. He satirized the cultural pretensions and privileged coarseness of the nobility which made him one of his nation’s foremost 18th-century dramatists. His wit and his knowledge of French and German classics made him a favourite in the enlightened circles of the court of Catherine the great. Such cultural satires became mortar for the construction of Russian nationalism.
In rejecting the West, reflected in works such as “Letters from abroad,” Fonvisin was not rejecting the idea of human reason but the force behind the faculties of reason.
Greenfeld, a Prof of nationalism at the Institute for the Advancement of Social Sciences (IASS), writes that the rejection of reason implied the reinterpretation of its corollaries in political culture: liberty and equality. While Russian nationalists agreed that the concepts denoted great moral virtues (for these values were so central to the canon that their very names acquired a magical character), they refused to see their true embodiment in Western institutions. Western liberty and equality were not real liberty and equality. These were something else. It was not entirely clear what they were, but the pivot of the reinterpretation is easily established. Individual freedom was the source of all bondage: It stifled and constrained the inner forces of spirit; and every expression of this limiting rationality in economic or political institutions only exacerbated it deleterious effects. Real freedom preceded into the soul and became the inner freedom; and political equality lost all meaning.
Fonvinsi was among the first to point to the critical difference between the real and the apparent. In his letters to Panin (1778), he wrote “Observing the conditions of the French nation, I learn to discern liberty by law and real liberty. Our people do not have the first, but enjoy the latter in many ways. In contrast, the French, having the right of liberty, live in veritable slavery,” but it was the Derzhavin who unselfconsciously, gave Russian liberty and equality a concise, but articulate poetic definition. He said in The Grandee “Blessed is the people which like the Russian people, sees happiness – in unity/equality – in equity/and liberty – in the ability to control ones passion.” However, the matrix of such a conceptualization which was the Russian nationalism was based on cultural re-evaluation. Russia did not have liberty and equality; and so it revolted against rationality, rejecting both the thinking individual and the faculty that define his nature.
Greenfeld points out that reason as a faculty of the human mind referred to articulation, precision, delimitation, and reserve. They oppose to it life so full of feeling that one could choke on it – the inexpressible, the immeasurable. By their very nature these qualities were vague, undefined. It was much clearer what they were not, than what they were. These qualities of the Russian soul arrived at through the mental exercise of posing antithesis to the Western virtue in which Russia was particularly deficient. Greenfield further points out that the possession of such a soul was so sweet, and its inventors and discoverers wanted so much to believe in it, that this initially intangible entity materialized and, embodied in the national character, became the most formidable and immutable component of the culture emerging around it.
Fonvisin argued that reason cannot be equated to the mind because the mind often cuts through the veil given that it’s a product of the surrounding environment, unless it is a product of a sacred and pure heavenly Island divorced from environmental variables, ‘reality’ and beyond human reach. Fonvisin argued that reason and thought is about fashion. Reason, and by extension the mind, can be out of fashion but not the soul. He argued that a body, which is just a vessel, without a soul is a monster and the soul is what brings about the pure consciousness of humanity and is the reason for its very existence. It was this foundation that the Russians wanted to construct their nationalism as distinct from the West. If we go by this analogy, we are tempted to assume that the Russian nationalism was constructed by men and women who had great ability to reason but guided by the soul. However, such an assumption may leave a lot to be desired.
Thanks to technology today. There are many Fonvisins and Peter the greats in the society in the name of politicians, academics and business people due to their positions of power and explosion of technology like facebook and twitter. But those who enjoy a relatively privileged position in the distribution of culture are journalists and citizens as journalists. Journalist report what happens by virtue of having witnessed the event unfolding, so do citizens. To what extent are journalists responsible, just like Fonvisin and Peter the great for the construction of a better South African nation and African nations today? Because journalists are people and there are more bad people than good ones in every nation, as Fonvisin observed, how can evil/bad journalists escape this psychological trait that is part and parcel of their human reason?
Given that psychological factors still play an important role, how can good journalists strive to counterbalance the imbalance? Do journalists have to be evil/bad to celebrate the fact that “good news is bad news?” Do they really celebrate bad news? If so, does it mean that this is because they are bad/evil journalists? Or is it because, like the French in Fonvisin’s analogy, their God is money and they simply sensationalize to sell stories? And how can they escape such criticisms and accept self critique of what is inherently psychological? Do journalists in South Africa and Africa view reality with Western fashioned lenses which marvel them but blind them of cultural issues in Africa like Peter the great?
The media has now replaced the early nationalists in Africa that had to "decolonize" the African mindset as well as overthrow colonial rule. The media should continue with the nationalist task of "reeducating" Africans and the promotion of black pride through African foods, music, dress, architecture, and religion as equal to, if not better than, their European counterparts. While these steps may seem minor they are the best ways that the media can adopt to build a better South African nation and African nations through their news content and programming. Yes we have e-TV, SABC, SABC-Africa and other news outlets in South Africa but a journalist is either good or evil. The good ones embody the soul/spirit and pride of Africa and are constantly constructing our unique nationalism.
To draw from the ancient Russian dramatist Denis Fonvisin, who was responsible for the construction of the Russian nationality in the 17th century Russia, we see relationships that can be comparable to South Africa and many African nations that realized nationalism much later in the 20th century given my arguments in this article. Like Peter the great, Fonvisin was keen about the realization of the Russian identity and nationality. Unlike Peter the great, who celebrated the idea of “the civil” or civilization from the West, especially the United Kingdom (the first nation on the planet), Fonvisin embodied the envy among Russians of the West. This was out of the realization that to be like them, then Russia has to match and probably even surpass them - as envisioned by Peter the great or Peter 1 (1682-1725).
There was influx of Western ideas and accompanied technology in Russia which Peter admired although he was not interested in cultural questions. When his vision to match and even surpass the West was not forthcoming and realizing that Russia could actually not match the West, resentiment was born beyond his control captured well by Fonvisin. However, this brought about cultural renaissance during the reigns of his successors.
The point I am making in this article is that one of the reasons why Fonvisin and many Russians were resented was the fact that the model conceived by the West was, according to him, not the best model for Russia to adopt. For when he personally visited France and after striving to be objective about his object of analysis (France), Fonvisin could not help but conclude that he saw more bad things happening in France than good ones, he saw many bad people than good ones. He further concluded that the same applies to everywhere in the world and neither the West nor Russia was an exception.
After observing the French, Fonvisin concluded that “a French man will never forgive himself if he misses an opportunity to cheat,” “his God was money”, that “what was considered a virtue in France was actually a vice in Britain” and that the French are good in nothing but the arts and culture (fashion). Having seen France, Fonvisin saw no reason to adopt the Western model but surely envied it. Nevertheless, the crisis of the forced noble identity created an identity gap and insecurity among the aritrocracy in Russia and the search for national identity became a state of emergency.
The search begun by, first and foremost, constructing the West as an object of ridicule especially in relation to the idea of civilization which Fonvisin, the dramatist, satirized so well. He satirized the cultural pretensions and privileged coarseness of the nobility which made him one of his nation’s foremost 18th-century dramatists. His wit and his knowledge of French and German classics made him a favourite in the enlightened circles of the court of Catherine the great. Such cultural satires became mortar for the construction of Russian nationalism.
In rejecting the West, reflected in works such as “Letters from abroad,” Fonvisin was not rejecting the idea of human reason but the force behind the faculties of reason.
Greenfeld, a Prof of nationalism at the Institute for the Advancement of Social Sciences (IASS), writes that the rejection of reason implied the reinterpretation of its corollaries in political culture: liberty and equality. While Russian nationalists agreed that the concepts denoted great moral virtues (for these values were so central to the canon that their very names acquired a magical character), they refused to see their true embodiment in Western institutions. Western liberty and equality were not real liberty and equality. These were something else. It was not entirely clear what they were, but the pivot of the reinterpretation is easily established. Individual freedom was the source of all bondage: It stifled and constrained the inner forces of spirit; and every expression of this limiting rationality in economic or political institutions only exacerbated it deleterious effects. Real freedom preceded into the soul and became the inner freedom; and political equality lost all meaning.
Fonvinsi was among the first to point to the critical difference between the real and the apparent. In his letters to Panin (1778), he wrote “Observing the conditions of the French nation, I learn to discern liberty by law and real liberty. Our people do not have the first, but enjoy the latter in many ways. In contrast, the French, having the right of liberty, live in veritable slavery,” but it was the Derzhavin who unselfconsciously, gave Russian liberty and equality a concise, but articulate poetic definition. He said in The Grandee “Blessed is the people which like the Russian people, sees happiness – in unity/equality – in equity/and liberty – in the ability to control ones passion.” However, the matrix of such a conceptualization which was the Russian nationalism was based on cultural re-evaluation. Russia did not have liberty and equality; and so it revolted against rationality, rejecting both the thinking individual and the faculty that define his nature.
Greenfeld points out that reason as a faculty of the human mind referred to articulation, precision, delimitation, and reserve. They oppose to it life so full of feeling that one could choke on it – the inexpressible, the immeasurable. By their very nature these qualities were vague, undefined. It was much clearer what they were not, than what they were. These qualities of the Russian soul arrived at through the mental exercise of posing antithesis to the Western virtue in which Russia was particularly deficient. Greenfield further points out that the possession of such a soul was so sweet, and its inventors and discoverers wanted so much to believe in it, that this initially intangible entity materialized and, embodied in the national character, became the most formidable and immutable component of the culture emerging around it.
Fonvisin argued that reason cannot be equated to the mind because the mind often cuts through the veil given that it’s a product of the surrounding environment, unless it is a product of a sacred and pure heavenly Island divorced from environmental variables, ‘reality’ and beyond human reach. Fonvisin argued that reason and thought is about fashion. Reason, and by extension the mind, can be out of fashion but not the soul. He argued that a body, which is just a vessel, without a soul is a monster and the soul is what brings about the pure consciousness of humanity and is the reason for its very existence. It was this foundation that the Russians wanted to construct their nationalism as distinct from the West. If we go by this analogy, we are tempted to assume that the Russian nationalism was constructed by men and women who had great ability to reason but guided by the soul. However, such an assumption may leave a lot to be desired.
Thanks to technology today. There are many Fonvisins and Peter the greats in the society in the name of politicians, academics and business people due to their positions of power and explosion of technology like facebook and twitter. But those who enjoy a relatively privileged position in the distribution of culture are journalists and citizens as journalists. Journalist report what happens by virtue of having witnessed the event unfolding, so do citizens. To what extent are journalists responsible, just like Fonvisin and Peter the great for the construction of a better South African nation and African nations today? Because journalists are people and there are more bad people than good ones in every nation, as Fonvisin observed, how can evil/bad journalists escape this psychological trait that is part and parcel of their human reason?
Given that psychological factors still play an important role, how can good journalists strive to counterbalance the imbalance? Do journalists have to be evil/bad to celebrate the fact that “good news is bad news?” Do they really celebrate bad news? If so, does it mean that this is because they are bad/evil journalists? Or is it because, like the French in Fonvisin’s analogy, their God is money and they simply sensationalize to sell stories? And how can they escape such criticisms and accept self critique of what is inherently psychological? Do journalists in South Africa and Africa view reality with Western fashioned lenses which marvel them but blind them of cultural issues in Africa like Peter the great?
The media has now replaced the early nationalists in Africa that had to "decolonize" the African mindset as well as overthrow colonial rule. The media should continue with the nationalist task of "reeducating" Africans and the promotion of black pride through African foods, music, dress, architecture, and religion as equal to, if not better than, their European counterparts. While these steps may seem minor they are the best ways that the media can adopt to build a better South African nation and African nations through their news content and programming. Yes we have e-TV, SABC, SABC-Africa and other news outlets in South Africa but a journalist is either good or evil. The good ones embody the soul/spirit and pride of Africa and are constantly constructing our unique nationalism.
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