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Senegambia
175 Posts |
 Posted - 04 Oct 2010 : 11:46:58
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The Bitter Side of Gambian Online Journalism, Ethics and Credibility
Dear Editor,
introduced a bewildering range of rights which allows journalist and non journalist to use its online paper to settle entrenched rivalries. It creates the controversial legal journalism freedom concept under which non journalists would be able to use offensive language against each other. Already journalists are rubbing their hands with glee. However, what is most disturbing is the fact that two well-known Gambians of good intellectual standing used his uncontrolled paper to launch disgusting and embarrassing insults against each other. The freedom newspaper for fear of being considered nasty or alienating its journalists or writers published this out of journalism standard articles. These measures imposed by the Freedom Newspaper have begun to damage online Gambian journalism. The sooner the Editor shows the courage to recognise this fact, the better for all. Online newspapers should accept a number of sensible suggestions for fixing this journalism mess
Look again at the scenario of despair at this week's scrabble between Sam Sarr and ex captain Sonko and you will see not just an astonishingly incestuous story of fraternal rivalry, but a damning indictment of the collapse of opportunity in Gambian journalism standards and a depressing reminder of the extent to which we are now informed by a tiny, closed and thoroughly naccissistic journalists class. One characteristics they all share (freedom editor, Sam and Sonko) is an overwhelming sense of entitlement that despite having no knowledge of the real world of journalism pretend to be using freedom of speech as an excuse to use foul language to discredit each other. How many ordinary citizens will grow up reading issues of this nature?
Indeed, the closer you look, the harder it becomes to tell that openness does not mean freedom to abuse each other. The ultimate indictment of today's journalism is that instead of becoming more ethical and responsive to the need of their readers, it seems to be going backwards, becoming more narrow, privileged and exclusive.
Freedom Newspaper should accept the ethical moral norms of our society's notion of what is wrong and right. This means that if the freedom newspaper wants to maintain credibility and to serve the public it must be free from distorting pressure exerted by its readers in order to be protected and trusted by the general public and even gather the support of readers to which they are accountable.
I still believe that no Gambian online paper is better than the other. Recently, Gambian online journalism has taken some bad hits because a former corrupt and discredited member of the Yaya Jammeh tyranny, Ebou Jallow was given the opportunity to use The Gambiaecho Newspaper (which also does not follow the codes of journalism ethics) to launch allegations against his former colleagues. Ebou Jallow a criminal whose stories should be taken with a pinch of salt was given prominence by the said newspaper and even when further to involve and raise a question to Ousainou Darboe as to whether his fellow criminals could be tried and the criminal himself to become a witness. Instead of the Thegambiaecho newspaper editor telling Ousainou Darboe that he had conducted an interview with criminal Ebou Jallow and what can be done to bring him to books, he was taking Ebou seriously and is willing to come up with other stories. Online papers struggle with credibility because many who publish on the web are untrained in journalism to at least industry standards.
Recently when the editor of the freedom newspaper was about to be involved in legal battle with Amadou Samba, I asked myself where is The Gambia Press unions both in UK and The USA. I assumed that their role here is to inform the various US administration agencies, human right groups, governments and journalist organisations that the Jammeh allies have started spreading their tentacles to the US and at the same time launch a campaign to show that irresponsible journalism is caused by lack of openness back home. I would prefer to call these Gambia press unions Yaya Jammeh Press Unions due to the fact that it is only when the president makes controversial statements or actions against Journalist they become activated and crude statements are issued. At the moment they are dormant and waiting for the president to make a move that's the time people will recall their existence. I think the role of the unions is to raise funds to support their fellow journalists, by large extend conduct training on a whole host of standard journalism issues and even remind newspaper on journalism code of conduct ethical issues and not wait for Yaya Jammeh to kick start their activities.
I would not speculate on the future demise of press objectivity and ethics, but most Gambian online papers have already align with special interest. The tragedy is that at a time when ordinary Gambians back home are feeling the pinch, and when the headlines are full of issues of hardship, pain and sacrifices, our journalism class has never been more out of touch.
Bakary Bojang UK
Source: Gainako News, http://www.gainako.com/news/news/2010/10/04/the-bitter-side-of-gambian-online-journalism-ethics-and-credibility.html
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Tesito
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toubab1020
12311 Posts |
Posted - 04 Oct 2010 : 13:29:35
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A nicely written piece,its a pity that " a technical mistake" (probably  ) prevented the FULL content of the letter being published on line,after the words "Dear Editor ",there appears to be words missing starting at the word "introduced",I wonder what the missing words were ? |
"Simple is good" & I strongly dislike politics. You cannot defend the indefensible.
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Edited by - toubab1020 on 04 Oct 2010 13:30:40 |
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Senegambia
175 Posts |
Posted - 04 Oct 2010 : 15:47:25
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| I agree its a nice piece. And very agreeable one. Too bad words were omitted. |
Tesito
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dbaldeh
USA
934 Posts |
Posted - 06 Oct 2010 : 09:40:33
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quote:
Originally posted by toubab1020
A nicely written piece,its a pity that " a technical mistake" (probably ) prevented the FULL content of the letter being published on line,after the words "Dear Editor ",there appears to be words missing starting at the word "introduced",I wonder what the missing words were ?
Toubab1020, you are right some words were missing on the full story. Here is the correct link. The person who forwarded the link must have done so in the middle of editing and posting the story. The missing words as you can see from the front page is Freedom Newspaper"
See full link below. Our apology for the error and for any inconvenience.
http://www.gainako.com/news/news/2010/10/04/the-bitter-side-of-gambian-online-journalism-ethics-and-credibility.html
Thanks |
Baldeh,
"Be the change you want to see in the world" Ghandi
Visit http://www.gainako.com for your daily news and politics |
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toubab1020
12311 Posts |
Posted - 06 Oct 2010 : 13:56:04
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No apology needed,I was a little curious to see the full article,just in case there had been some editorial cutting
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"Simple is good" & I strongly dislike politics. You cannot defend the indefensible.
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