(TALKZIMBABWE) Journalists or opinion makers
Journalists or opinion makersMichael Chifamba — Opinion
Tue, 13 Jan 2009 03:08:00 +0000
DEAR EDITOR — I have to say I have witnessed some sloppy journalism in some Zimbabwean media. I will spare some names for now.
Zimbabwean media is made up of a growing number of increasingly sloppy journalists who bother less about verifying facts and only try to advance personal feelings.
And their sloppiness is now jeopardizing our progress as a country. It's made worse by a barrage of equally sloppy so-called analysts – who emerge from nowhere to superstardom.
Some established journos have led themselves be emasculated and lobotomized by activists, rather than simply doing their job.
Seriously, we want facts, analyses, verifications, verifications, in our media.
Unfortunately, I have seen many so-called publications that just make up stories as they go. Most of them wait for The Herald, The Chronicle, The Independent, The Standard, etc to print the original researched stories, then make up sensationalised versions without even giving credit to the original publisher.
Journalism unfortunately has become a place where you hide the truth, not find it.
It's now a place for sloppy people to make a good amount of money telling the rest of us what to think, even though they themselves stopped thinking long ago.
Some stories that have come out of internet-based publications have been out of this world to say the least.
Most of the so-called editors are just clones who stopped thinking like independent journalists a long time ago.
Bloggers are spared the criticism. They are just bloggers expressing their own opinions.
Unfortunately, sloppiness by trained journalists has become part of a larger Zimbabwean problem. Not just a larger problem of political bias in the mainstream media, a media that is simply terrified of doing its job, but a divisive factor threatening to disrupt established social relations.
Some trained journalists whose writings once helped further the Zimbabwean cause have now sold out to sloth and influence.
This is the sad state of this profession today.
Sloppy journalists and cowardly politicians need to wake up and smell the coffee, or they will never understand who we really are until it's too late.
Michael Chifamba is a journalist trained in Zimbabwe. He works for a UN agency in Pattaya, Thailand.
Labels: INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
posted by MrK @ 4:55 PM
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