Tuesday, March 20, 2018
Visit to America
Journalism in Ethiopia
Ethiopian Journalism – From Common Sense to Activism
Terms, concepts and theories in certain professions might be misunderstood. It happens and may be tolerable until the misconception is over. But it would be weird and sad to see a given profession misunderstood almost in entirety. That is the case with journalism in Ethiopia.
These institutions do not practically allow, or have failed to encourage their journalists to constructively investigative and expose: challenges of development and real weaknesses of implementers, injustice, acts of corruption and human rights violations, so that there will be timely actions and solutions through discussion among the public, policy makers and officials.
By doing so, the state-owned media and
their associates are playing negative roles in Ethiopia’s development and
democratisation process.
The same is true, though less so in the
present, with many of the privately-owned media outlets, but with a different
mission. They claim to represent the public, but again, with their own version
of truth.
Can they be perfectly objective?
Well, this would be unrealistic and is
“comparable to asking whether a circle drawn on paper to do a geometry problem
is “perfectly round”, as John B. Judis, the American journalist, writes.
Judis argues “Journalists (or policy
experts) usually have a rooting interest in what they write about, but it need
not shape what they write. That is the whole point about objectivity – and the
role of editors and second drafts. On a psychological level, too, a
journalist might want to see Al-Gore win the election, but he or she might also
want to maintain his reputation as a journalist whose reporting can be trusted
by Republicans as well as Democrats. One hope might override the other. That is
what professionalism is about.”
However, the media must entertain
activists, propagandists, opinion writers and all sorts of inclinations and
citizens. Yet it is unprofessional for news media to totally and completely
subscribe to the interests of the few, practically to a ruling party, an
opposition camp or market monopolist individuals, pretending that they are
doing journalism. Or they must explicitly and legally declare themselves as
organs of political parties, religious institutions and such, and should not
contend that they are practicing journalism.
What are we hoping
for?
I do not think the professionals should
take this long to understand that they need to make maximum effort to be loyal
and accountable to their target audiences, and respect the core values of their
profession. It is not too late to discuss their role in the Ethiopian society
and clear up the confusion. It is also not a shame to come together to form
strong professional associations and media councils, putting aside political or
whatsoever interests.
The government has to support and
facilitate such a move. It needs to stop considering the private media as the
enemy and the government media as machines for indoctrination.
Both private and government media really
need better freedom to exercise their profession. They need a better political
space to contribute to the roles expected of them in the quest for sustainable
development. The media are in desperate need of the right to access to
information, again without discrimination.
Ethiopians deserve access to alternative
media outlets and we simply could not understand why the government wanted
television channels to be monopolized by the state and remained so reluctant to
give more trade licenses to others, in an effort to diversify media ownership
in the country. Permitting and supporting more independent private media to
flourish in the regional states would significantly change the current
practice. It may break the tradition and would probably serve as widened source
of information to those centered in the capital which eventually could help them
see the full picture of the country.
PUBLISHED ON SEP 07,2015
[ VOL 16 ,NO 801]
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