Perspective By Stephen Mpofu
The saying that “One swallow does not make a summer” is no doubt globally acknowledged. For most people the validity of the truism begins and ends there. For others, however, especially journalists in the West where the profession originated, a single swallow “does make many summers”, or news stories with which to inform, educate and titillate unsuspecting or gullible readers.

The practice of these professionals is informed by a Western media theory which says that “lies are facts” on which to base a story. This theory obviously runs against the grain of the general journalistic golden rule which requires that any facts on which a story is based should be clothed in immutable truth.

Earlier this week The Voice Of America radio broadcasted reportage of interviews by remote control from Zimbabwe that typified the one-swallow journalistic practice which appears decidedly prevalent in the West. VOA’s Gibbs Dube, a former reporter at The Chronicle then under the editorship of yours truly interviewed two white men in Bulawayo by telephone about what it meant for whites to live in Zimbabwe.

In the first interview aired, the reporter gave the interviewee’s background as a white man whose farm was “invaded” by blacks and now lives in Bulawayo where he is in business.

The man did not refer to his reported loss of the farm but instead talked about how enjoyable it was for him to live in an area where Ndebele was spoken. This suggested that life was inhospitable for any white people living in areas where indigenous languages other than Ndebele were spoken.

In the second interview, the man, who apparently also had his land repossessed, spoke in angry tones about a need for other countries to intervene in Zimbabwe in order to bring about “a rainbow nation.” He mentioned the United States of America, Canada, Britain and Australia as countries that could help bring about such a rainbow nation.

Reading between the lines and with reference to one such rainbow nation in Southern Africa, one is left in no doubt whatsoever that the man yearns for a nation where having been removed from power, whites continue to enjoy a lion’s share of social and economic benefits while indigenous people enjoy an empty political independence.

But in both interviews the reporter gives off an impression to his gullible audience that both interviewees presented views shared by many other white people in Zimbabwe — something that only a survey could produce. But the story mentioned no other people interviewed apart from the pair and so nothing could be a worse journalistic monstrosity than that which feeds on the one-swallow-summer approach to information dissemination for consumption by a wider public.

That brand of blatant, speculative journalism has often been displayed by foreign correspondents especially from the North. A reporter jets into a country, completes immigration and customs formalities at the airport, looks for and happens into a pub. She/he buys a beer and sipping it finds a local person to talk to especially about the political and economic situation in the host country. Once booked in at his or her hotel the reporter files the scoop back home without even so much as verifying the veracity or otherwise of the pub story with relevant authorities in that country.

For the correspondent the one source will be the swallow responsible for the advent of a summer — the “exclusive” report for home consumption.

Zimbabwean correspondents of foreign media especially radio have also been hooked onto the type of journalism were a single source of information is made to represent the opinions of other people not interviewed by the correspondent.

For instance, this pen listens to VOA and other foreign radio stations on a daily basis. When the President, Zanu-PF or the government make a pronouncement, say, on a new policy, Zimbabwe’s VOA correspondents based in Harare will interview one person who disagrees with the announcement. But a story filed will say “Zimbabweans” do not agree with this or that measure announced. This gives the impression to the foreign listeners of the radio broadcast, or readers of a newspaper carrying the story, that many people have been interviewed about the subject in question.

The mind boggles.

But perhaps nowhere else has the lies-as-facts theory been demonstrated better than in the invasion of Iraq by the US and her Western allies in March 2003 when lies about the existence of weapons of mass destruction were made a factual reality by the Western press. This was after Iraq under President Saddam Hussein annexed America’s oil swimming pool, Kuwait, but no such arms were ever found even after President Hussein was executed and his country destabilised to this very day.

A Western journalist who objectively covered the invasion and the atrocities accompanying it was accused of working against the interests of his government and was sent packing back home, apparently for fear that he might tell the world the truth, and nothing else but the truth, about the brutalities committed against the Iraqi people. And come to think of it, the invaders got away scot-free even though their action was an impunity defying the world power, the United Nations, which would never have sanctioned an invasion of a member state based on nothing but falsehoods as no such weapons were ever found in that country. Now if any modicum of the nobility of the journalism profession in Zimbabwe has to be preserved measures must be taken to ensure that the lies-as-facts on which to base a news story makes no inroads into the profession.

Now one wonders whether sections of the Zimbabwean media whose reports about talks between Zanu-PF and opposition parties for an inclusive government that have since been denied by the ruling party are based on the theory about lies being facts, or whether the denials are precautionary measures in case the reported talks fail to accomplish a positive result. If, indeed, the stories were based on that infamous Western media theory, then the Zimbabwean Union of Journalists has a gargantuan task before it to ensure that errant journalists are re-educated to toe the line of truthful, factual reporting for the benefit of the nation as a whole.

The lies-as-facts brand of journalism will not do justice to a country such as ours, in a hurry to develop economically and where developmental journalism with truth as its hallmark stands to move mountains out of the way. It also behooves on those who own mass media houses to ensure that their workers uphold professional standards in their careers so that these same workers might continue to enjoy the esteem of the public they serve.

If truth in journalism is rendered an anachronism by reckless reporters, the pen will also relinquish each attribute as being mightier than the sword.

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