Since I was very young I have always wanted to legally attain success whatever form of moral definition it carries along in its broadness. As such I positively envied and admired those people of high social standing. There was a time I dared admire becoming a president, via the legitimate way of course. I’m saying ‘was’ for now the things I wouldn’t want happen to me whilst alive is becoming a state president. Thanks to my freely exercising of reason. Practising law and medicine are excessively restricted, so is flying an aeroplane (at least the conventional one). Driving a car on the roads requires a licence so does teaching where you should be issued with a license to teach. Everything requires expertise except ridiculing and battering your head of state. Justifiably or not, it doesn’t matter. There is no reservation to right of entry into the borderless world of scrutinising and blaming presidents. Just as they say football is the only sport and actually one of the few activities in the polarised world of ours that put on one side the diversely rich with their poverty stinking counterparts, the uneducated and the learned, so does free art of bashing the president and his government policies. The media too joins the fray always scampering around to assume mastery in president bashing to the amusement and approval of the rest of the ordinary masses, the ordinary lay bashers. It has been tempting for most lay people to accord a saint status to the media that they are a rare species of humanity dedicated to truth even if it means taking an adventurous extra mile in getting at truth.
I almost started trusting the media. Yes I correctly say ‘almost started’. They took the role of bashing the president and his government in calling for the passing of the access to information bill. It was all over their editorials showing sense to the rest of us the naive that it was all for our own good though we didn’t seem to know it. Everyone who holds public information must ensure they disseminate it to the public. This too has been said to be the mandate of the media that their commitment to truth does not move parallel to profit making but only parallel to the truth and no other thing.
It is not easy not to perceive the Malawian media as the only presently living candidates for beautification by the Pope as contemporary saints. The passion with which they have lobbied for the passing of the access to Information Bill will make even the dissenters nod in approval. I hadn’t been spared of such admiration for a selfless service the media was rendering to the nation. Well not anymore since the past three weeks.
While I was in Malawi somewhere in July, Stanley Onjezani Kenani in his column which runs in the weekly Malawi News complained of the lack of update of online new sites for the country’s major newspapers The Nation and The Dailytimes. I did not fully grasp the relevance and weight of his argument then. Not anymore this moment. Having been outside Malawi for sometime now, I have greatly struggled to get a semblance of an independent news source to keep me in touch with what is happening on the dramatic and unpredictable political stage in Malawi. More so when the citizenry jury is about to go to the polls to deliver its verdict on the political leadership. Even more so when you are addicted to newspapers and would not afford the luxury of staying out of touch for twenty four hours. My country has two major print media houses. Loudly they have both been part of the ceaseless call for the government to especially the legislature to pass the access to information bill. So patriotic and concerned for the importance of accessing information have these media houses been that they have been devoting their editorials and some even giving out space to run columns urging the ‘insensitive’ legislature to acknowledge the moral obligations it owes Malawians by passing the bill. Their appeals were never in vain. At least I also joined them on their wagon and sped with them into the dream world where vital information is readily accessible and how transparent and accountable society is. In that world of imagination, courtesy of the passionate calls by these houses who had all along been believers in unhampered access to public information that whosoever is entrusted with it would ignore and somehow overcome any other temptations of crookedness and injustice that would seduce him into abusing his position of holding information.
Today though, I am afraid that I was indeed only dreaming. The two major print houses, The Nation and The Dailytimes were not at all with me in the dreamland or maybe I should say that I was not at all with them in the dreamland. This is why today I am indicting them for duping me.
One of the vices the media worldwide has thrived upon is both the condemnation and exposure of double standards. The Malawian media too is of the same genotype. The media serves the people. The media is the self-touted fourth estate of government. The media knows the interests of the average and honesty-longing masses. The media knows the people hate double standards. They hate double standards by politicians. They hate double standards by civil servants. They hate double standards from the profit driven private sector. They hate double standards by traditional leaders. They hate double standards everywhere by everyone. So what should one expect when one shockingly discovers the media too has double standards? The lawyers have a better term out of the bagful collection of what is to the layman nonsensical and intimidating terminologies: they call it betrayal of trust.
Betrayal of trust is what I have just experienced. I can no longer locate nor trace the trust I had about the Malawian print media when it comes to sincerity. You see I now know there are thousands of Malawians who are living in the Diaspora at this very moment. These are people of various levels of influence ranging from criminals to professors. They are in the Diaspora yet no dozen hours ever pass without thinking about home. Their home is Malawi. That is where their hearts, memories, ambitions, loved ones and even hopes are. They hence have every right to know what is happening in their beloved dear country. This would have been a problem in the days of yesteryears. No more today. Don’t we have the internet? Isn’t it correctly touted as that mystery which brings the entire world and its huge vastness onto one’s fingertips?
This is why the two media houses saw sense and indeed the full view of it in establishing newsites to keep everybody who cares about Malawi in touch with their country. Given the standing of The Nation and The Dailytimes, this was not just doing the Malawi nation a gesture of goodwill. It is an obligation. They started well. But come and visit their sites later.... It's is pathetic. You have a page for daily news un-updated for a week. You have a news item that occurred in May still glaring on the front pages. You have links to columns and features that have remained undeveloped for months. You also have one of the most awkward search engines whose results are as surprising as they are out of pace with basic search engines’ functionality.
When I conducted my own survey as to why this happens I am informed and I believe it, that it is because these media houses do not make money in terms of advertisements from the online publications. My! My! My! Profits for what? I also hear that they are afraid that their sales will dwindle once they timely update their news sites. Malawi.... Malawi .... Malawi....
What has happened to the access to information zeal? Who isn’t sniffing double standards’ scent here? Profit versus access to information!!!! How different is this from the DPP politician cum civil servant or minister who for his own benefit and his group’s withhold information relevant for a specific time and releases it ‘anyway’ after the time when it was craved for? I have now established why newspapers must not share the trust we reserve for our kin and our traditional leaders. They have several interests. Even if we concede the feeble concern about less profit, where then does the justification of having May news headlines still reigning the homepages in October come from?? This is shocking! Is this as well the influence of the sensitive hand of profit making? My thought was that I could bear with the appetites and commitment to maximising profits, and would not lose a lot anyway in having the news page being up-dated at 4pm daily after those who buy the newspapers have already bought them so that may be those in the Diaspora might be independently informed. But what do you get at 6pm if it is not May news headlines glaring in the manner of Breaking News?
It should be noted that there are also other people who matter to the country in the Diaspora, or if you differ on their relevance at least the country matters to them and as such they deserve to be given the information about their beloved country by whosoever has that responsibility. This is why for example out of the twelve million many of us we only let in a handful individuals, journalists, to have access to the first citizen whenever he is travelling in or outside the country to communicate with him on several issues on our behalf. Now having an audience with a head of government is not among the easiest things to achieve in the world. But it’s all on our behalf. Thus we at least demand to know about our country through those websites which might start getting rusty now because of underutilising them.
Malawi could be a poor nation. But the standards which are being portrayed by The Nation and Dailytimes’ websites are an exaggeration of what we are incapable of doing. A very bad reflection on the nation. With such neglect should we soon honestly complain of western stereotypes about our nation’s standards. When they criticize us our media will immediately react with vigour. They will be bashed in our daily newspapers. Who has never seen double standards??
I almost started trusting the media. Yes I correctly say ‘almost started’. They took the role of bashing the president and his government in calling for the passing of the access to information bill. It was all over their editorials showing sense to the rest of us the naive that it was all for our own good though we didn’t seem to know it. Everyone who holds public information must ensure they disseminate it to the public. This too has been said to be the mandate of the media that their commitment to truth does not move parallel to profit making but only parallel to the truth and no other thing.
It is not easy not to perceive the Malawian media as the only presently living candidates for beautification by the Pope as contemporary saints. The passion with which they have lobbied for the passing of the access to Information Bill will make even the dissenters nod in approval. I hadn’t been spared of such admiration for a selfless service the media was rendering to the nation. Well not anymore since the past three weeks.
While I was in Malawi somewhere in July, Stanley Onjezani Kenani in his column which runs in the weekly Malawi News complained of the lack of update of online new sites for the country’s major newspapers The Nation and The Dailytimes. I did not fully grasp the relevance and weight of his argument then. Not anymore this moment. Having been outside Malawi for sometime now, I have greatly struggled to get a semblance of an independent news source to keep me in touch with what is happening on the dramatic and unpredictable political stage in Malawi. More so when the citizenry jury is about to go to the polls to deliver its verdict on the political leadership. Even more so when you are addicted to newspapers and would not afford the luxury of staying out of touch for twenty four hours. My country has two major print media houses. Loudly they have both been part of the ceaseless call for the government to especially the legislature to pass the access to information bill. So patriotic and concerned for the importance of accessing information have these media houses been that they have been devoting their editorials and some even giving out space to run columns urging the ‘insensitive’ legislature to acknowledge the moral obligations it owes Malawians by passing the bill. Their appeals were never in vain. At least I also joined them on their wagon and sped with them into the dream world where vital information is readily accessible and how transparent and accountable society is. In that world of imagination, courtesy of the passionate calls by these houses who had all along been believers in unhampered access to public information that whosoever is entrusted with it would ignore and somehow overcome any other temptations of crookedness and injustice that would seduce him into abusing his position of holding information.
Today though, I am afraid that I was indeed only dreaming. The two major print houses, The Nation and The Dailytimes were not at all with me in the dreamland or maybe I should say that I was not at all with them in the dreamland. This is why today I am indicting them for duping me.
One of the vices the media worldwide has thrived upon is both the condemnation and exposure of double standards. The Malawian media too is of the same genotype. The media serves the people. The media is the self-touted fourth estate of government. The media knows the interests of the average and honesty-longing masses. The media knows the people hate double standards. They hate double standards by politicians. They hate double standards by civil servants. They hate double standards from the profit driven private sector. They hate double standards by traditional leaders. They hate double standards everywhere by everyone. So what should one expect when one shockingly discovers the media too has double standards? The lawyers have a better term out of the bagful collection of what is to the layman nonsensical and intimidating terminologies: they call it betrayal of trust.
Betrayal of trust is what I have just experienced. I can no longer locate nor trace the trust I had about the Malawian print media when it comes to sincerity. You see I now know there are thousands of Malawians who are living in the Diaspora at this very moment. These are people of various levels of influence ranging from criminals to professors. They are in the Diaspora yet no dozen hours ever pass without thinking about home. Their home is Malawi. That is where their hearts, memories, ambitions, loved ones and even hopes are. They hence have every right to know what is happening in their beloved dear country. This would have been a problem in the days of yesteryears. No more today. Don’t we have the internet? Isn’t it correctly touted as that mystery which brings the entire world and its huge vastness onto one’s fingertips?
This is why the two media houses saw sense and indeed the full view of it in establishing newsites to keep everybody who cares about Malawi in touch with their country. Given the standing of The Nation and The Dailytimes, this was not just doing the Malawi nation a gesture of goodwill. It is an obligation. They started well. But come and visit their sites later.... It's is pathetic. You have a page for daily news un-updated for a week. You have a news item that occurred in May still glaring on the front pages. You have links to columns and features that have remained undeveloped for months. You also have one of the most awkward search engines whose results are as surprising as they are out of pace with basic search engines’ functionality.
When I conducted my own survey as to why this happens I am informed and I believe it, that it is because these media houses do not make money in terms of advertisements from the online publications. My! My! My! Profits for what? I also hear that they are afraid that their sales will dwindle once they timely update their news sites. Malawi.... Malawi .... Malawi....
What has happened to the access to information zeal? Who isn’t sniffing double standards’ scent here? Profit versus access to information!!!! How different is this from the DPP politician cum civil servant or minister who for his own benefit and his group’s withhold information relevant for a specific time and releases it ‘anyway’ after the time when it was craved for? I have now established why newspapers must not share the trust we reserve for our kin and our traditional leaders. They have several interests. Even if we concede the feeble concern about less profit, where then does the justification of having May news headlines still reigning the homepages in October come from?? This is shocking! Is this as well the influence of the sensitive hand of profit making? My thought was that I could bear with the appetites and commitment to maximising profits, and would not lose a lot anyway in having the news page being up-dated at 4pm daily after those who buy the newspapers have already bought them so that may be those in the Diaspora might be independently informed. But what do you get at 6pm if it is not May news headlines glaring in the manner of Breaking News?
It should be noted that there are also other people who matter to the country in the Diaspora, or if you differ on their relevance at least the country matters to them and as such they deserve to be given the information about their beloved country by whosoever has that responsibility. This is why for example out of the twelve million many of us we only let in a handful individuals, journalists, to have access to the first citizen whenever he is travelling in or outside the country to communicate with him on several issues on our behalf. Now having an audience with a head of government is not among the easiest things to achieve in the world. But it’s all on our behalf. Thus we at least demand to know about our country through those websites which might start getting rusty now because of underutilising them.
Malawi could be a poor nation. But the standards which are being portrayed by The Nation and Dailytimes’ websites are an exaggeration of what we are incapable of doing. A very bad reflection on the nation. With such neglect should we soon honestly complain of western stereotypes about our nation’s standards. When they criticize us our media will immediately react with vigour. They will be bashed in our daily newspapers. Who has never seen double standards??
1 comment:
May be we should not really compare the developed world with local industry which has only a total newspaper production of 150,000 a week out of 13.1 million people. The ISP providers, i can speak for the Nation have been a let down. i cannot even access my company mail for 2 weeks since am outside the office. The problem is not the media houses, they have tried to build the services but the technical know how of our ISP providers. Daily Times has moved from sdnp to Skyband, Nation from Malawi Net to Globe, such movements results also sometimes in change of addresses, but the reasons are beyond the media control. I for one would like to have a byline online on daily basis.
Thanks for the observations though.
Kondwani Bell Munthali
News Analsyt
The Nation www.nationmw.net
www.munthalikondwani.blogspot.com
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