Maravi

Did The Post doctor that picture?

Did The Post doctor that picture?
Written by Editor

WE received a letter late afternoon yesterday from information and broadcasting services minister Lt Gen Ronnie Shikapwasha bringing to our attention government's displeasure and exception at our newspaper's use of a picture on the front page of our Thursday, May 21, 2009 edition of President Rupiah Banda in a deceptive manner.
In his letter, Lt Gen Shikapwasha stated that

"Anybody or any photographer who was at that meeting would attest that your picture is just computer generated whereby the President is superimposed on a position he never took at the meeting, which is that of sitting next to former Minister of Communications and Transport, Ms Dora Siliya. One wonders what your motive was in generating such a picture. Government therefore demands a reprint of the correct picture and an apology over the use of an engineered picture."

We have no difficulty whatsoever meeting Lt Gen Shikapwasha's demand for a reprint of the ‘correct picture’. And we reprint it on the front page of today's edition. However, we do have difficulties apologising over the use of an engineered picture because we do not have such a picture. But if anyone can provide us with such a picture, we will print it to meet the minister's demand.

Lt Gen Shikapwasha's letter was addressed to the editor-in-chief of The Post. And upon receipt of this letter the first thing the editor did was to phone the photojournalist, Eddie Mwanaleza, who took the picture in Livingstone and was still there. He read to Eddie the minister's letter. Eddie's response was that the picture was not doctored or engineered in any way. And he has more pictures where Rupiah and Dora appear together in Livingstone. Eddie emphasised that the picture that was published in yesterday's edition was as he had taken it and evidence of the originals is there for anyone who wants to know the truth to examine.

Eddie is not a young boy. Eddie is a mature man in his late forties. He has worked as a photojournalist in this country for many years and enjoys the respect of all in the Zambian media. We don't think Eddie can sacrifice his dignity, integrity - professionally or otherwise - in such a senseless manner.

Eddie has no personal issues with Rupiah or Dora. He is simply an honest professional doing his job the way he knows it.

The Post also has no reason to put Dora sitting near Rupiah when in fact she was far from him or was not anywhere near him at all. What would that profit The Post?

The Post has no reason to doctor Rupiah's picture in that manner. If anyone at The Post has tampered with that picture in the way Lt Gen Shikapwasha is claiming, for us it is a serious offence for which one should lose his job. And we therefore call on Lt Gen Shikapwasha to come with any experts that he can lay his hands on to examine the genuineness, or lack of it, of the pictures we used. If at the end of the day it is found that the picture we used was indeed engineered, we will go beyond simply apologising to Rupiah and Dora.

However, it is good that the government is starting to realise that there is something wrong in Rupiah being seen sitting next to Dora in public. We hope, in the same vein, they do also realise that there is something seriously wrong in seating a convicted criminal, out on bail pending appeal, next to the Chief Justice of the Republic of Zambia at a state banquet. However, this should not be just a cosmetic matter of not being seen together in public while privately they are stuck to each other like a Tampa tick.

If Lt Gen Shikapwasha fails to prove that the picture was indeed engineered, we will have no alternative but ensure that Eddie and The Post take legal action against him for defamation.

It is clear that there is a systematic campaign by this government to try and discredit us, taint our professional reputation with all sorts of schemes.

And this is what is pushing them to try and even do deals with people like former National Revolution Party general secretary James Lukuku. Like everyone else, we make mistakes. But they are honest mistakes. We don't go out to deliberately falsify stories or pictures. We don't promote or defend our causes with lies, falsities, deception and dishonesty. We don't use hired political mercenaries to advance and defend our lines. It's they who do that. We have no favours, financial or otherwise, to extend to anyone. We do everything with the truth - even where things turn out wrong, they are not done with the intention to deceive, mislead or malign anyone. It is they who tell lies about us and others. It is they who claim things they cannot prove. Everything we do and publish, we can substantiate or justify. Where we have made a mistake and we have no justification, we quickly apologise without hesitation upon discovery that we were wrong.

For a newspaper that approaches its work in this manner, it is not possible to falsify pictures, to doctor images and present to the public things that don't exist, concoctions. If one day we were to wake up and find that as a result of someone who has lost his head, The Post carried a falsified story, concocted news, doctored or engineered pictures, we will have a serious crisis. But we will know what to do. We will not deny that such a thing has happened. And those behind it will be brought before our disciplinary committee to answer the charges of their crimes. We don't do things arbitrarily. Nobody is fired or disciplined arbitrarily at The Post. We have an elected disciplinary committee that decides the fate of everyone who works for The Post. If tomorrow we were to wake up and find that Eddie or someone else within our editorial system had doctored that Rupiah-Dora picture, they will have to face the disciplinary committee.

We will never hesitate to admit our weaknesses, our mistakes. When mistakes are committed and discovered, they will be openly admitted and promptly corrected. It is in this spirit that we are asking Lt Gen Shikapwasha or anyone in government or indeed any member of the public to come and show us and prove to us that the picture we used was doctored or engineered in any way.

We don't like what Dora did but we have no right to tell lies about her, to falsify pictures of her. That is beyond us.

Labels: RONNIE SHIKAPWASHA, THE POST

posted by MrK @ 1:48 PM