Professional Practice in Sierra Leone
According to the findings of this writer, coasting journalists are guys who go around with a begging hat in their hands asking for pittances from politicians and the general public for the pieces of misinformation they relay to the public. Such indecent and unprofessional practice does not only contravene the ethics of journalism in this country, but it also has the potential to inhibit the press freedom we all yearn for.
Journalists in some parts of the world are people revered sanctimoniously for upholding the truth, and nothing but the truth. In the absence of disseminating the truth that has got to do with the welfare and development of the people, journalists have degenerated themselves into nothing but mere mass communicators.
At different occasions, people who know what the role of journalists should be in promoting the development of a nation have fumed and cringed at this group of hustlers known as journalists. One old man of an impeccable character has rebuked me for referring to some miscreants in our local tabloids as journalists. He further intimated Sierra Express Media (SEM) that journalists should be seen as sages or like soldiers who fight for the truth and reflect the views and voices of the voiceless in society.
On the contrary, journalism as practiced in today’s Sierra Leone is full of concocted stories geared toward concealing the truth that should promote development. Our journalism has been tainted with vindictive and malicious tendencies directed against people who don’t concur and support some counterfeit political ideologies. Some journalists in Sierra Leone have demeaned themselves by propagating falsehood to lure unscrupulous politicians into doing shady things that do not represent the best interest of all citizens. Their unpatriotic act of peddling fake reports just to satisfy and meet their egoistic intentions is like a tape worm that wound around the progress of this nation.
The role of journalists should be seen as no less a vocation but to serve as catalyst that would effect positive changes for all and sundry in a post conflict nation like Sierra Leone. Some journalists of reputable stature and grandeur around the world have helped salvage their societies from menace such as rape, house breaking, robbery, wife beating, perjury, gang-rape and many other oddities endemic in their societies by relentlessly pursuing the truth to the end. But today, disappointingly, there is hardly anywhere in this city where one can go without them being associated with partisan politics or yucky-yucky journalism. Some have even turned themselves into praise-singers or the Djallibas, as the Mandingoes would refer to them.
How journalists can be agents of change in our society has been thoroughly analyzed in Madonna King’s book, the “Catalyst- The Role of the Media and Public Opinion”. An insight into that book explores sixteen cases pursued by journalists in Australia that served as catalyst for change in that society. If Sierra Leone is to be developed, journalists in this country must follow the selfless effort demonstrated by those journalists in Australia so that people can benefit from those positive changes.
Yucky-yucky in journalism in this country is sabotage and a cankerworm to the plights of ordinary Sierra Leoneans and it has served as a thorn in the neck of developmental projects. This so true if one should note their conduct each time a private investor doles out money towards our own development, some rogue journalists would portray the gesture as something relevant. That is absolute misinformation that is denigrating the sacrosanct aura of the practice of journalism in this country.
When parliamentarians or politicians who are supposedly the rightful custodians of the laws of our land deliberately flouter the constitutional procedures in parliament, journalists praised-sing them for job well done. Why, If it is not for the purpose of being sycophantic? Had it not been out sycophancy and blind political sentiments shown by guys purporting to be journalists; there is no need haling and exalting somebody or a group of people for doing something that arrantly contradicts the supreme laws of this nation.
The bad thing about coasting journalism is that it undermines the harsh realities of life in this country. Imagine a journalist that shies away from giving facts about the abject poverty affecting a particular community which is part of the Government’s much-talked Agenda for Change, what would become of that community? Obviously the end result would be underdevelopment and individual contempt against the power that be.
Sierra Leone, a nation that is grappling to fix its developmental priorities right is expected to have a good press coverage rather than wishy-washy one that would surely inhibit and eventually cripples its democracy. In making that happen, members of the Fourth-estate are key players in aiding Government to achieve those developmental objectives.
The harsh realities of life in Sierra Leone are numerous. Key among them are lack of good roads, lack of pure drinking water for all, irregular electricity supply, no standard medical facilities, poor incentives for teachers and low budget allocation to meet the demands of school going children and the auctioning of our natural resources to foreign investors in exchange for meager amounts. Had it not been that journalists in this country have their ulterior motive of milking the country dry, special attention and focus would have been paid toward those sensitive areas highlighted in this writing. Certainly, those who are guilty of coasting journalism would not like to read this piece, but at the same time our instincts to let the people know the truth would not hold tight lips and wait for posterity to judge us.
Sadly, when greedy and heartless journalists are on the height of popularizing dubious acts of politicians, they have little to reconcile the fact that these politicians are not worthy to be friends. This is certainly the truth about our society, because politicians always have bags in their hands oscillating back and forth like a pendulum from party Y to party Q. This is exactly what we have inherited and practice in the politics of Sierra Leone. At the end of their (politicians) exploits, who is fooling who; the politicians or the journalists? Journalists in this country should know that they have the sole responsibility bequeathed upon them – to let the people know the truth for their own development. But in a situation where the truth is being mortgaged for pittance or favor, let us all be reminded and beware that our history would surely judge us on the negative side of life.
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