PHOTO: The Author
By Meahleeh Sandolo
Coming into the media back in 2004 and undergoing a series of training workshops, I learned a few jargons that follow a professional journalist, and these are: fairness, impartiality, balanced, and clarity. Thanks to Elizabeth Hoff, Kamara A. Kamara, Frank B Sainworla, Alphonso Zeon, Raymond Zarby, and Vanwen Anthony for paving the way to the profession.
Those professional people, in fact, made these ethical words to sound like the Ten Commandment in the Holy Bible that breaching them was derailing self-respect and committing a heinous crime. In an exceptional case, the media professionals advised that while we have our personal opinions about issues of concern in society, we must strive as much as possible to bury them with our feelings to play an independent role in what we say on the radio or write in the newspaper, because doing so will build public trust in our reportage. In furtherance, professional ethics adds that as we write or say what we can, we must do so with the consciousness of duty to self, duty to fellow colleague, duty to institution, duty to audience, and duty to society.
However, over the period we have witnessed a different and disgusting trend aside these principles that those media professionals taught us, and it leaves me in doubt whether the professionals are still alive or deceased. Today, with the proliferations of media institutions under the principle of “Free speech,” practitioners talk and write as they wish, with no consideration even for “Duty to self.”
We write and talk nowadays as sentiments and loyalty dictate, thus segmenting the audience into many subsets. Consequently, the media in general has drastically lost readership and listeners, because professional journalists, media pirates, interns and apprentices alike, are all taking their sides. More frustratingly, the English we speak and write conforms to our unprofessional behaviours, making our audiences to wander in the language land which direction they should follow.
We also learned that when a newsmaker is unclear in his or her speech, we must exert efforts to have an exclusive interview with the person to clarify. Contrary to this, a word from a person’s mouth is thrown into the space in sentimental expressions to please a group or certain individuals.
The writers and speakers fail to consider even the theory of Social Responsibility which speaks of creating the environment for one to live and operate.
As media practitioners, we must realize that time changes with regime, and as our roles dictate, we are for and against all based on how people perform in the public and private sectors.
The bad precedent we set today hunts us tomorrow. And as it is now, I hope we can conduct an opinion poll under Self-monitoring Management to determine the feelings of our audiences on how well we are performing, but without any doubt, I can declare that the Liberian media is beclouded by shame and disgrace.