Why is it that reporters in Swaziland insist on acting as if they were judges?
Hardly a day goes by without one newspaper or another publishing details of crimes that have been committed and convicting somebody of them before they have even had the chance to get to court.
There were a couple of these kind of stories in yesterday’s papers (Tuesday 9 October 2007.)
One report in the Times of Swaziland ‘Killed after graduation party’ told how a man who was driving his friends from a party was stabbed to death following an argument with a friend who refused to stop smoking in the car.
The report then gives a very detailed account of what happened. Or does it? It gives someone’s account. But as is typical of the Swazi newspapers the witness the reporter quotes extensively has no name. We are asked to trust the reporter that the story he writes is true. True or not, only one side of the story is given and how are we, the readers, to know whether the person telling the story was himself / herself involved in the incident and has a vested interest in putting out one side of the story?
The Times has found the man guilty before he even gets to court.
It is not the place of journalists and newspapers to make such judgements. The place for the story to be told is in court. The newspapers will have their chance to report the details then. In this case a man was arrested and was due to appear in court yesterday, so the newspapers wouldn’t have had to wait too long for the story.
A story in the Swazi Observer yesterday (9 October 2007) ‘Teacher in Sex Row With Pupil’ raises more interesting questions. This report is about a 12-year-old girl who says her teacher raped her. It quotes her extensively, which itself raises some ethical issues as she is a minor.
It doesn’t look as if the girl’s parents or guardian were present when she was interviewed (the girl speaks about actions her uncle took upon learning of the rape. I wonder why the reporter didn’t interview him, if he was present).
The Swazi National Association of Journalists’ Code of Ethics Article 16 is clear on this, stating that journalists shall protect the rights of minors and in criminal and other cases secure the consent of parents or guardians before interviewing or photographing them.
The girl’s account is not corroborated by anybody and the teacher involved claims that the girl is lying because he had exposed some love affairs among pupils. Incidentally, the report states that the teacher has threatened to take his own life, but gives no quote from the teacher to support this.
So what is the truth of the matter? I don’t know, and nor do the reporter or the Observer’s editor. Journalists should not deal in rumour and gossip; they should deal in factually based information. However, the way that the report is written makes it clear to the reader that we should believe the girl’s side of the story.
It doesn’t seem that the police are involved in this case yet and one can’t but help wonder why, since the incident is alleged to have happened on 14 September and the girl reported the matter to her uncle.
This is another case of the newspapers finding a person guilty without benefit of a trial.
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