IS OUR MEDIA TARGETING NEGATIVE TIDE FROM OUR PARLY HOPEFULS? OR JUST SELLING THRASH

Let me just play the devil's advocate and ask myself these few questions:

1. If a reporter from any media house interview's you in vernacular and publishes the story in English , so who is to blame on direct translation?

2. Is our media doing enough in publishing positive stories about the elections or rather prefer setting the hopefuls against each other?

3. Does our local qualify to analyse the events which unfolded during the primary elections?

Arrgh !!! i can ask the whole world all the questions and i can bet my last E0.25 in my First National Bank savings account that
the response i will get shall only be based on personalities rather than objectivity. I was was very much disappointed at the reports that on Parly hopeful is alleged to have uttered the words of evil against a fellow constituency soul. Furthermore the publication resorted to interview the aggrieved soul about such utterance in  order to make headlines the following day...
Third day ....boom....rival newspaper publishes an apology by the accused MP hopeful and it makes it as prominent.

i dont want to be seen taking sides because one of the accused persons fingered in such a story is a friend and teammate it disturbs my mind of when did the reporter choose the correct English words to use on the story? To a certain extent i cannot blame the reporter because the Queen's language was brought by ship and the translation headache is evident world over ...Just a throwback...Former RSA President struggled, our church interpreters have been struggling and some high school teachers just struggle to present anything written in English. 

Setting two people from the same constituency against each other does make it good news but for the good of the journalistic trade it would have been logical to double check if the 'enemy' really meant what he said and it would have been a very balanced act of writing to verify with the rival if she was aware of the enmity. I personally don't see the reason of waiting the next day to ridicule the other who has erred. This was the continued irresponsibility by the publication. 

As we learn from our mistakes let us hope sonkhe sakha kwetfu , we are all Swazis lets hope all our journilism colleagues in the Kingdom and beyond would ensure that we report news responsibly. Wishing all media practitioners writing about elections an ease to information and to be blessed with the eagle's eye, K9 sense of smell for newsworthy information rather than our facebook posts

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