Wangethi Mwangi The Dar es Salaam Declaration on Editorial Freedom, Independence and Responsibility (DEFIR) was adopted by the Media Council of Tanzania on 18th February 2011 and officially launched in March 2011. It is now open for signatures. Any media owner, practitioner or member of the public can endorse the Declaration by signing it at the offices of Media Council of Tanzania.
Editors, by the very nature of their work, shoulder great responsibility as they are the final arbiters of what gets published and are thus required to be steadfast, upright and just – Declaration of Editorial Independence, Freedom and Responsibility (DEFIR), Part IV.
Final arbiters? Yes. Throw in other labels like gate-keepers, society’s watchdog, agenda setters and moderators and you begin to appreciate the enormous influence this category of media practitioners wields. Against the background of these lofty responsibilities consider the likelihood of irresponsible exercise of that influence and you have a veritable disaster. DEFIR, which was launched in March last year, exhorts the broad body of journalists, which includes editors, to walk a straight line.
This line has three crucial landmarks, which the International Federation of Journalists’ code refers to as the core values of journalism and defines as truth, independence and the need to minimise harm. When they follow this line conscientiously, so the theory goes, journalists justify their place as agents of positive social change whose primary duty is to the public. Unfortunately, the path is littered with numerous challenges and obstacles, thrown in there by the larger constituency of media stakeholders, which include owners, big business, the state, politicians, religious lobbies and the public itself.
The truth is, everyone wants a piece of the journalist’s territory, primarily for selfish interests. In recent times, nowhere has this been been so dramatically exemplified than during 2010 General Election here in Tanzania. In a no-holds-barred analysis aptly titled So, this is democracy? the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) pillories Tanzania’s journalists for what it calls their blatant misconduct in the coverage of the elections.
According to MISA, quite a sizeable number of journalists assigned to cover both the campaigns and the election itself embedded themselves in the various political camps and assumed the agendas of their benefactors in total disregard of their social responsibility to serve the public good. Vilification of the political opponents of their hirelings, falsification of stories, misrepresentation of facts -- the list of infractions goes on and on. What did the journalists and their media houses lose?
Their credibility and public trust. The biggest casualty, though, was truth. It was lost in the labyrinth of the competing diverse interests of the very stakeholders that form part of the media’s constituency of consumers.
The challenge then is to figure out how to manage these interests. And this is where aspirational initiatives like DEFIR come in, at one level, to prick the journalists’ conscience and, at another, to map out the path of righteousness as it were.
The point of departure is this: Editorial freedom and independence must mean the freedom of the public to access information, which has been processed and disseminated by editors and other journalists.
However, this information must reflect the core values of journalism, the foremost of which is truth.
And here is another DEFIR truism: Editors should take great care to distinguish editorial copy from advertisements and paid-for press releases so as not to deceive or confuse the public as to the source and nature of the content.
In the case of the election coverage, if we accept MISA’s analysis as a patently honest appraisal of the goings-on, then we must accept that there was some deception. Yet another DEFIR truism: Editors should exercise due caution when using as sources press releases and other official communiqués emanating from government departments, corporate organisations, diplomatic missions and other official and semi-official organisations by treating them critically and investigating their veracity.
This is critical and is a key pillar of the journalistic profession. In an environment like ours, where pressure, in the form of inducements, to disguise public relations material, government handouts and the like as news can sometimes be overwhelming, it often requires a strong will and a firm stand on what we believe in to help us meander around it.
These are not mere exhortations. They are intended to define a responsible journalistic culture. But in a rather vague sense, it does appear that what actually stands in the way is actually not pressure from vested interests. Rather, it is the journalists’ inability to internalize their noble calling and to have the guts to say no to those who wish to divert them from discharging their social obligations. It is a newsroom battle journalists must continue to wage and win as a duty to the public.
Wangethi Mwangi is member of the Think Tank on Freedom of Expression and Media Issues of the Media Council of Tanzania (MCT).