How the Sowetan got it wrong- AGAIN….

A journalist friend of mine asked me a really good question about this Sowetan debacle, a second one in two weeks. His question made me think deeper about what is offending me about this story. The question he asked was:  Is media (or a newspaper in this instance) a reflection of society? A mirror on which society sees itself?

You see, one big lesson I will never forget in my working life was learning the difference between CONTENT and PROCESS and that the integrity of any situation depends on an alignment of both.
The question he was asking is a content question: the activities that these people engage in truly is a reflection of our society. It could be me in that video for example. There are things that we love to do sometimes that we are not proud of. And these cops behaviour is a content issue to be debated and discussed, if the public is interested.
But HOW this content is brought into the public domain, is a different story(pun intended)- if in the midst of your process to bring the story you break every rule of decency and orderliness- however it’s defined: you break the law and manage to obfuscate any message you were trying to send- then the purpose for your action is defeated. (for example Act 65 of 1996 as amended, at least s28 of the constitution,  S1.7 of the press code of professional practice- to name a few).

So the paper has at least twice in two weeks demonstrated how it has failed in its awareness of rules of content and process.
A long answer to his short question: yes, the media is a mirror to society- but it depends also on who is holding the mirror, because what society sees is very much depended on where the mirror is facing and who is holding the mirror. And right now i do not trust the holder of the mirror, therefore I will never accept that it’s a reflection of me. (Incidentally my job involves holding a mirror to leaders everyday- the only reason they should even be listening to me is because of the credibility I carry in their eyes- otherwise, all my reflections are deflected back to me.)

So because of their not paying attention to process, Sowetan has once again deprived society of an opportunity to examine itself through dialogue. Raising the right issues in the wrong way. The perfect example of how they missed this can be heard in Thabiso Sikwane’s show on kaya fm last night- where all people were focused on was the newspaper and its treatment of the story, not the dialogue she was raising about this issue. And if that sample of messages is any benchmark to go by, the newspaper totally failed to achieve its “public interest” purpose- because no one even bothered to talk about those last two or three lines about the uniform and the police.

As a general reflection, I believe this precisely one of our journalistic challenges. Driven by intention, however noble or not- most of our journalists chase the sensation and ignore the integrity that process brings into their content.

I’m sure they made a lot of money though…was that perhaps the true intention?