Journalist impersonates in Court
It was very embarrassing last Friday when a journalist Foday Jalloh was arrested by people who claimed that he took the sum of Le100,000 from them to secure bail for one of their relatives lodged at the Pademba Road Maximum Prison.
Journalists including this reporter felt the sting of embarrassment last Friday when the issue arose as comments came from all directions saying that “some journalist reporting on court hearings did not behave well as he has immersed himself in the judicial corruption that has taken over affairs in the Freetown Law Court,†a member of civil society present at the scene commented with heavy regret.
Self-styled journalists at the Freetown Law Court are in the habit of standing surety for people, and fraudulently pretending to be magistrates, lawyers, police officers, prison officers; a development that is very bad for our profession.
The role of a journalist in the court is to find news and report back to his or her media institution, but taking money from people in the name of helping them obtain justice is a very unpleasant development and betrays the very essence of being the voice of the voiceless. This is an issue that the leadership of the Sierra Leone Association of journalist (SLAJ) should address.
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