This year, an event
that ran from August ended just a few days ago when the Malawi Communications
Regulatory Authority—MACRA—fined a popular privately owned radio station Zodiak
Broadcasting Station—ZBS—some $1,250 for what the Authority described as non-compliance
with the terms and conditions of its licence as provided for in the Act guiding
the same in the country—the Communications Act. The fine followed a meeting
between the two parties, i.e. MACRA and ZBS over utterances one direct
fire-brand opposition Member of Parliament, Kamlepo Kalua, made in an interview
with ZBS way back in August this year. In the interview, Kamlepo is said to
have alleged that the country’s former President who also happened to be leader
of the current ruling Democratic Progressive Party—DPP—Bingu wa Mutharika had
killed Robert Chasowa, a student at one of the constituent colleges of the University
of Malawi in 2011. He is also alleged to have said that during the reign of the
United Democratic Front, and this is the predecessor of the DPP and the two are
currently sharing a political bed, the UDF had done the same—killing a popular
reggae musician, Evison Matafale in 2001.
In a press release
justifying the fine, the Authority said Kamlepo’s allegations would very easily
present the supporters of various political parties in the country with a
powder keg for violence. In reacting to the news about the fine, ZBS management
simply described it as a verdict unfair.
A heated debate
followed the imposition of the fine. Some people, alleging ZBS has some connection
with Late Dr Hasting Kamuzu Banda’s then ruling Malawi Congress Party, said ZBS
had crossed the margin of journalistic ethics in the interview with Kamlepo, the
country’s political Caesar, a man who even fear itself fears his sight. Others
said MACRA was acting under instructions, for how dare it jumping on ZBS when
the public fella, Malawi Broadcasting Corporation, is tarred with an even worse
brush?
Whether MACRA was right
or wrong in imposing the fine to ZBS is not the subject of this article. First,
the Act vests in MACRA the power to impose a fine where a broadcaster’s
deportment has breached the terms of ‘contract’ with MACRA and thus the public.
And this is not new. In December 1998, the Independent Television Commission (a
body which licensed and regulated commercial television in the United Kingdom
between 1991 and 2003) fined Calton TV £2 million following
revelations in The Guardian that two
of the TV’s programmes ‘The Connection’ and ‘Inside Castro’s Cuba’ were, in
fact, fake. Before the exposure, ‘The Connection’ had been sold to 14
countries, winning 8 international awards for its breathe-taking investigative
reporting risk to expose drugs. As for ‘Inside Castro’s Cuba,’ The Guardian said the purported
face-to-face interview with Castro had not taken place at all, and that the clips
in the interview were mere archive footage supplied to the TV by the Cuban
government in good faith. Before this exposure, ‘Inside Castro’s Cuba’ had won
two international awards.
In short, imposing fine
where there is a breach on the ‘contract’ is not new though experience shows us
MACRA only works against those on the other side, leaving the fella on the
block, MBC, to operate on a kind of different licence, one with less stringent obligations,
if there are any at all in that regard.
I said earlier on the
subject of this entry is not whether MACRA was right or wrong to impose a fine;
the subject of this discussion is media ethics and professionalism in the
country, and this has been brought into sharper focus yet again following the
Kamlepo interview and its aftermath, i.e. the MACRA fine to ZBS and the debate
that ensued soon after it was meted out.
One cannot discuss the
question of media ethics and professionalism without referring to the November 2014
locus classicus when State House
invited members of the press to dine and wine at the Palace, and there the
important event happened—members were asked each to pick up their folder inside
which was a white envelope containing K50,000 (about $100) cash. It is said one
or so had refused the envelope right away while others, whether out of respect
or something, first took them home and later went donating the money to the
poor as a gesture they were not in business to trade their obligations to the people
for something as little as $100. And so, the new government’s attempt (it had
just won the General Elections some five months previously) to ‘bribe’
journalists had been exposed.
It should be remembered
that State House had done this in full view of television cameras, and so one
ought to be cautious when labeling State House as working on what was
described as ‘stroking’ in the 1960s American politics where administrations, through alienating
or including reporters, attempted to control what the press would write about
them.
In Malawi, the
envelopes have always been there both from private newsmakers including
non-governmental organisations and public newsmakers. In my time when I worked
for the national broadcaster we referred to them as khaki envelopes because
they came in small brown envelopes. This time, they were white whether this was
referring to colour or not, I am not sure.
I read Late Raphael
Tenthani’s article on the same ‘Blood Money: Muckracking on Mutharika’s Cash
Handout to Malawian Journalists’ dated November 30, 2014, and it was
fascinating.
In the discussion,
Tenthani quoted Khushwant Singh, a former editor for Hindustan Times, on where a mere show of appreciation from a
politician turns into a bribe; in other words, the point at which an ordinary
gift can be said to amount to a bribe, and therefore a cause for concern. The
quotation reads: “I would accept a bottle of whisky from anybody because I
would still feel free to criticise them. . . But I would not accept a case (12
bottles) of whisky, because I am afraid, that might influence the way I do my
job.”
What Tenthani was
driving at was that a mere lunch or a treat to a bottle can never ‘buy’ your
allegiance in the direction of the giver, but twelve can.
First, don’t think the
giving of whisky is only a problem among journalists. In a title What News?, investigators David Murphy
and Bob Franklin tells a story of how, after Manchester police had arrested Iranian
students who were protesting against the Shah whom Ayatollah Khomenei was about
to replace, the Iranian Consul, Dr Jahannema, had given a crate of whisky to
senior police officers. David Spark in Investigative
Reporting: A Study in Technique, 1999, p. 175, says investigators, Andrew
Jennings and David Murphy, upon getting wind of this, went to the Consul for
more information. There, Jennings is said to have told Dr Jahannema that he (Jennings) had been to a
police station where he had found officers drinking and they had really
appreciated the Christmas Whisky. In the course, the Consul revealed that indeed
they had sent out about 200 bottles, about five of them to the police. This had
become an issue because “it is the Chief Constable’s policy that personal gifts
should not be retained” (p. 176).
That aside, now I want
you to compare the November 2014 white envelope story with what has recently
happened in the country according to www.nyasatimes.com
in a story dated December 8, 2016, entitled ‘Mwenefumbo takes (sic) Karonga
Journalists to Parliament’ (by Tiwonge Kumwenda).
The story says Frank
Mwenefumbo, Member of Parliament for Karonga Central Constituency, brought
journalists (both sets—those representing national media houses as well as
those serving localised communities) to Parliament in Lilongwe (during the
on-going session). According to the article, this was the MP’s own initiative
and the aim was to ensure journalists in the District are familiar with what
happens in Parliament. This, Mwenefumbo said, would help them write what they see,
and not just what they hear.
I would have a few
issues here. First, if the initiative was to ensure their professionalism, why didn’t
the good MP consult with other MPs in the District or even non-governmental
organisations and media bodies with interest for professionalism in the field?
Would the expenditure on these journalists justify a bottle rather than a case
(12 bottles)? In other words, is the gesture so negligible it can never tilt
the scales in favour of good Mwenefumbo in the minds of these men and women subsisting
on black ink?
Well, for interest's
sake, the Tenthani’s white envelopes story had attracted 89 comments against Kumwenda’s
Mwenefumbo’s story’s 2. In fact, of the 2 comments in Kumwenda’s story, one
supported the initiative, the other was in a form of English so difficult I
could not tell what the contributor was trying to mean.
Now, were the two
stories different? In what ways, because one involved the President, the other
just an independent Member of Parliament? Put simply, does interest in issues
of media ethics and professionalism wear two different uniforms for unequal
political powers?
Tom Wicker (1926-2011)
was a great political reporter and columnist for The New York Times. His work On
the Press: A Top Reporter’s Life in, and Reflections on, American Journalism
proffers interesting first-hand insights on how the media can balance the need
to befriend politicians and their obligations to the trust and obligations they
owe the public. At page 133, Wicker observes: “If friendships with news
(sources) become more valuable to a reporter than his journalism obligations,
of course, he is professionally crippled. If a reporter somehow becomes
obligated more than casually—accepting, say, the use of an official’s weekend
cottage or a congressman’s houseboat—he runs a real risk of the debt being
called.”
In short, Wicker says
the moment a journalist drinks beyond a bottle or eats beyond the measure of a
single lunch, he or she must expect the giver to demand something in return.
I am not saying it is
wrong for politicians or news sources to dine and wine the reporter; that’s not
what I mean. Journalists must dine and wine with the sources because that is
where they get news items. However, there should be a limit to which the
reporter can accept gifts from a news source.
Tom Wicker, on the same
page (133) talks of how that one journalist had flayed or severely criticised
the JF Kennedy administration for its “efforts to win the press by wining and
dining reporters” yet a few months down the line when a new President took over
after the assassination of JFK found himself a beneficiary of some funny gift
from the new President, Lyndon Baines Johnson—LBJ.
According to Wicker,
Krock is said to have been invited to the White House by LBJ for an interview.
Wicker says the interview went into a luncheon in the private presidential
quarters where, later, “Krock found himself standing at attention and being
crowned with a pearly white, five gallon LBJ hat with the brand of the LBJ
Ranch emblazoned on the interior band” (p 133).
According to Wicker,
Krock did not take it home, but gave it to a secretary in some office within
the White House, asking her to keep it for him and never to tell anyone about
it. Krock was later to confess to Wicker: “I could not refuse the President’s
gift. But I could only think of those men sitting out there in the press lobby.
I could only think of them watching me pass through, wearing my LBJ hat. .
. Mr Wicker, after my article in Fortune (where he criticised the
tendency to receive from politicians) I could not do it” (p 133).
Wicker says Krock asked
him to collect it for him from that secretary. And unknown to Krock, a similar
thing had once happened to Wicker who confesses: “I was only glad to do it,
having an LBJ hat of my own in a closet at home” (p 133).
Krock’s story is a kind
of irony in that he found himself a ‘beneficiary’ of a very system he had
flayed. Of course, it came when he didn’t expect it; that’s how politicians
work. Such gifts come when you can least refuse them. It is thus important to
keep watch.
A similar thing
happened to me when I worked for the public broadcaster during the reign of the
United Democratic Front under Bakili Muluzi (the first new multiparty President—1994-2004).
One top party official fetched me to cover a party meeting in one Southern
Region district. Guess who I found inside this man’s vehicle—the Senior Chief of
the area where ‘we were going to conduct the meeting’. This was a place over
100 km from Blantyre, yet the Senior Chief from that area was in Blantyre,
travelling to the meeting with us from a district this distance.
On our way there, still
in Blantyre, this top party official asked the Senior Chief and me if he could
pass by his office because he had forgotten to give the Senior Chief some gift.
He told me I was to equally benefit. He took us
through stairs into his office, and there he gave the Senior Chief one gold
neck-tie emblazoned with ‘UDF’ and clasped hands—the party’s symbol. I benefited in the same measure. I still keep that tie as a memento of the drama
that politics is in my country.
Wicker says some gifts
are inevitable but they should not hit some proportion. He, for example,
bemoans the fact that some journalists could go as far as travelling in the Caroline (the Kennedy family privately
owned aircraft) to Cape Cod (the Kennedy home).
The press is sometimes
described as the fourth estate beside the executive, the legislature and the
judiciary. When the President is ascending to power or when a Member of
Parliament or when a Judge, etc. is being inducted into office, they each take
oath of office (or mere affirmation if they do not believe in the existence of
a deity). The purpose is to ensure they understand the level of burden placed
upon the shoulder of their conscience for them to do just right for the people
by abiding by the supreme law of the Land, the Republican Constitution. The
media operate rather on a different scale of expectation because apart from the
creed of journalism which is no oath, to say, they do not undertake oath of
office, or if they do, I remain to be educated on this front. What this means
is that the media must operate within the confines of the Constitution, of
course, yet the source of the people’s trust on them comes from an abstract social
arrangement where the people repose in them great trust to tell the truth. The
people do not attach anything to this as a prerequisite; they simply trust that
the people who work in this profession are married to honesty, objectivity,
fairness and other such values, and they can never divorce themselves from
these. Thus, the people have no immediate rail guards to check against breach
of this trust apart from trusting that those working in this profession can never
derelict from their duty and obligations towards the people. This is where the
media have to practise guided not by creed or anything but by that highest
measure of trust and honesty that would even surpass that set out in our
Constitution.
Am I saying the media
must never be invited to lunch or be given some gift? No. It is the magnitude
of the gift and the extent of the receiving that matter. This is where Wicker’s
Third Law of Journalism—Be neither in nor out—comes in. This means that as a
reporter, you must be in or else you will starve, deprived of news items. However,
you must never be TOO in lest you should begin to serve the generous master at
the expense of the people. It is not a formal rule, there are no hard and fast
rules about it; it is decided on a case-by-case basis. This is why I say it is
a delicate balancing act.
References
Berry, David (Ed) (2000)
Ethics and Media Culture: Practices and
Presentations. Oxford: Focal Press.
Kumwenda, Tiwonge, “Mwenefumbo
Takes (sic) Karonga Journalists to Parliament”. December 8, 2016. Available at www.nyasatimes.com accessed December 15,
2016.
Spark, David (1999) Investigative Reporting: A Study in
Technique. Oxford: Focal Press.
Tenthani, Raphael, “Blood
Money: Muckracking on Mutharika’s Cash Handout to Malawian Journalists”.
November 30, 2014. Available at www.nyasatimes.com
accessed 16 December, 2016.
Wicker, Tom (1978) On Press: A Top Reporter’s Life in, and
Reflections on, American Journalism. New York: Viking Press.
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