The goofs this time

In its issue of February 18, 2019, the Daily Trust published a front page story on the violence in Kajuru local government area of Kaduna State. The headline was: How 66 Fulani were killed in Kaduna villages. It was accompanied by a near half-page spread photograph of a four-year old child, Ibrahim, a victim of the crisis from whose body five bullets were extracted. Lucky boy.

I recall the story not to open the wounds that must have substantially healed by now but to treat some principles of reporting and editorial judgement in how the story was reported and published by the newspaper. I do so as the ombudsman. Reporting ethnic and sectarian violence poses some peculiar problems for editors and reporters. It is not always easy to get it right. Emotion is an unreliable ally in editorial judgments. It tends to flow and dictate how a reporter handles a story of this nature. Some reporters are unable to be professionally detached from a story of violence. Violence claims human lives. The sight of dead bodies breaches the lachrymal levee. Reporters are human after all. Never mind their shakara.

You cannot please two or more sides to a conflict because each tells its own side of the story to the conflict to win public sympathy. It follows, therefore, that how professionally reported the story of violence might be, it could still cause offence to either side or both sides to the conflict.

In dealing with such stories, editors and their reporters must take due cognisance of the three principles of reporting: professional judgement, social responsibility and professional ethics. Let us consider them one by one to see how we can best navigate such treacherous waters in the future.

The professional principle obliges editors and reporters to tell the public what happened on the incontestable grounds that the rights of the people to know cannot and must not be denied them. The primary duty of the reporter is to report what he saw or what he gathered from official and unofficial but reliable sources. It is the duty of the editor to approve the publication of the story, where it should be published and how it is published. Sounds simple but you should know that journalism imitates life. It too is complicated.

The professional freedom of editors and reporters to report and publish stories as they wish faces three obstacles. The first is the professional principle at the root of reporting and publishing. Under this principle editors and reporters must address these questions. What do we report? How much do we report? How do we report it?

A reporter does not report everything he sees. His editor is there to make sure that he does not roam too far afield. Here, the editor is concerned with two of the three questions: how much does he publish and how does he publish it? No story enjoys unlimited newspaper space. That is pretty much a given. How the editor responds to how he publishes a given story must take into consideration two fundamental principles: social responsibility and professional ethics.

The second point then is the social responsibility. This principle stipulates that in reporting ethnic and sectarian violence, care must be taken to ensure that the published story does not inflame passion and make matters worse for both sides to the conflict. In the case under consideration here, this principle was not duly observed. Here is the headline again: How 66 Fulani were killed in Kaduna villages.

Both the headline and the body of the story were factual. But how do you think a Fulani man who read that headline and saw the accompanying picture of the young victim of the conflict would feel or react? I would imagine that a thought of revenge would immediately well up in his breast. The newspaper has thus made matters worse for the communities where the violence erupted. I am not suggesting that a newspaper should tell a lie. Far from it. I am suggesting that it should give the facts diplomatically, if you see what I mean.

There have been cases where media reports were cited as giving rise to ethnic and sectarian violence. We cannot be too careful. Ethnic and sectarian violence is a delicate matter and needs to be handled with care. A little mistake either way by a newspaper in its reportage could escalate the violence. It would not be a professional credit to the newspaper.

The third point is that we must always be guided by our social responsibility. We write and publish not to destroy but to unite; not to inflame passions and emotions but to cool them when they are heated up. The correct thing to do in reporting ethnic and sectarian violence is not to name names, particularly in the headlines. Not all newspaper readers bother to get their facts from the story. They stop at the headlines. If the headline misleads, they are misled. If it was cast in a manner that would bring out the fighting spirit in those who are directly or indirectly concerned or affected, they would fight. And more blood would flow.

We must balance the need to know with our ethical, professional and social responsibilities. A good newspaper earns its pips by how it discharges its professional and social responsibilities. Editors and their reporters are not responsible for ethnic or sectarian violence but they are fully responsible for how they feed the public with the information at their disposal. The publication under reference was clearly a goof. The Trust titles have carved a niche for themselves. But as you can see, professional judgement remains tricky for young as well as experienced editors.

Bottom line: Mahmud Jega writes a very entertaining and informative column in the Daily Trust on Mondays. I was pleasantly surprised to see that he too is not above a goof. Here is the headline for his column of February 18: Its our indiscipline, stupid. I am sure he wanted to write: It’s our indiscipline, stupid. I know the printer’s devil must have poked you in the eye, Mahmud.