Are the days of Media objectivity long gone?
By Scarlet, 10th Mar 2010 | Follow this author
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Posted in WikinutNewsMedia
The malady of “authoritativeness” - Can the media get cheaper than this?
Can the media get cheaper than this?
“A moribund society creates its own morbid grave diggers” – Karl Max.
I respect the Media, that is why such stories as this, make me sorrowful.
A few months ago, in a small country call it country X; a priest was accused of sodomy - of sodomizing young boys. The story was published by the media and newspapers sold like hot cake. These were only allegations, nothing was proven, though the media published the story as though the guy had already been sentenced.
Now let us look at this incident closely. As many people were dissecting the allegations against the priest in question, it was discovered that a lot of money had changed hands in the effort to fabricate this priest – mmmh!
Isn’t it queer that an authoritative TV channel runs the story 5 times in a row as a top story, and completely ignores the fact that the accused is crying foul, crying blackmail? Now for the benefit of those who might not have a clue, the editorial policy for top stories all over the world is always “it leads where it bleeds”. I will expound. Where two stories of competing magnitude land in the newsroom, priority is based on loss of life or death, then injury, skirmish, politics…in that order. It is not common practice for any objective media house to give priority to a story on a fight that no one dies, when there is a story where several people perish. But this is what some media houses in country X did regarding these allegations.
The sodomy story was published, 5 days in a row. Now during these five days, a lot happened. If my memory is not failing me, on Wednesday of the same week, an oil tanker overturned in the said country, exploded in flames and killed twenty people instantly. Scores were injured. You’d expect such a story to hit headlines, but no, what does the authoritative TV channel dwell on? The priest’s sodomy scandal!! Now you stare at this page and want me to say such a media house is objective?? No, I won’t say.
One wonders, is someone trying to dress down the Catholic Church, clearly if this is what is called authoritativeness then I am going down to hell. This is what we call skewed reporting that lacks the slightest cackle of acumen.
Now while it is normal for people to react angrily on false accusations, here I strive to be sober and dissect this issue intelligently. In so doing I still maintain that, I am not the jury, but all allegations must be probed. Not probed like some media houses at times pretend to do, nope, not that way.
Let me tell you about the witnesses.
Where are the abused children? Nowhere to be seen. So you want me sing alleluia when a media house runs a child abuse story for 5 days as the lead story with no single, NO SINGLE, child interviewed, no single, NO SINGLE, witness interviewed by the police??
In this story, the reporter, claimed to be interviewing former destitute children abused by the priest. They had their faces concealed from the Camera to avoid recognition. I won't call it camouflage under the guise of protecting “sources of information”. Judge for yourself.
The second evidence is not only vague, but completely crass. The reporters claimed to have pictures and videos of the sodomy acts that the priest carried out with the children. But in the pictures and videos, the face of the priest is not seen, only his back. Pictures and video footages are the easiest to manipulate in this era of technological revolution, actually effortlessly. In recent years people have been setup on fake video clips and photoshoped graphics. One can make a photo be what he wants. So how is a video clip admissible as evidence in court? All video must meet the authenticity test.
I feel like laughing, but this is no laughing matter. Such an allegation is clearly unsubstantiated. There is no authenticity in the “so called evidence", which brings me to the question of quality professional journalism…………just how thorough are our so called “society watchdogs” in researching their stories especially where names are being mentioned? I’m not defending the priest in question…… but why didn’t the media pursue the line of blackmail further? Let me say that as I write this story, the Priest is already a free man. He was acquitted last month for lack of evidence, as the said pictures and videos were proved unauthentic, and the so called witnesses confessed that they had been paid to tell lies. Can the media get cheaper than this?
Comments
10th Mar 2010 (#)
This is evil, this is murder.The priest's name has been destroyed.It can not be undone.
The media has always been doing it :you can google and read on the Quiz Show where the producers told the winner it is time to lose.
And recently the balloon boy...
There are lots of them...adviseable to to be armed with a baloney detector.
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