By Isaac Massaquoi
I am very surprised that in the last two weeks I haven't received any message falsely announcing the death of Trade Minister Usu Boie. Don't be surprised that I am surprised about that because in the first week following the medical evacuation of the minister, I received at least five messages on social networking sites announcing his death. Some of the messages appeared so authoritative that a lot of people on those sites started sending condolence messages to the minister's family and friends. But all journalists are taught to be sceptical about every piece of information, at all times.
The late former president, Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah died many times on social networking sites before he actually died in flesh. On one occasion, the late president's wife was compelled to go Politico Online to debunk the story. On another occasion she went on a late night radio programme with DJ Base on AYV Radio to deny a well-crafted obituary announcement that was being tossed around by mobile phone users all day running. I remember a colleague who was so fed up with this relentless media speculation about the health of people, saying that he was left with the impression that some people behave as if they were happy at the death of others.
There is a lot happening in social media chat rooms but I brought up the two examples to demonstrate how dangerous and insensitive such speculations about the health of people can get from the growing number of Sierra Leoneans who are guilty of misusing the communication opportunities provided by social media, a situation now made worse with the outbreak of the Ebola disease and the panic and confusion accompanying it.
Here's the social media Ebola diet we consume on a daily basis: We wake up to news about people infected with the disease with their pictures splashed around and, in some cases, their family members clearly identified. Within minutes of people being buried, the pictures of the event are distributed around the world with total disregard for the feelings of the grieving family members. Our phones keep going off until we go to bed, only to wake up to the same diet the next day.
With many Sierra Leoneans now able to get smart phones, a kind of paparazzi culture has gripped the country and unless some regulatory mechanism is put in place to control some of the worst excesses of such behaviour, I am afraid, things can only get worse.
Can anybody forget how a photo of the late Tom Nyuma's corpse was splashed across some newspapers and on social media sites? All the noise that followed that unethical treatment of the dead ended in nothing. The hospital staff who was reported to have distributed those photos was never punished to reflect the magnitude of that insensitive behaviour. Instead, and as far as I know the matter was swept under the carpet.
The situation is now like a sport. Well, in a way, journalism is like that - a kind of mad rush to get the story. But getting the story first is not all there is to journalism. Getting the facts right and examining the ethical implication of the facts is always a major issue to consider in the news business.
When British and American soldiers are killed in battle, photos of their bodies are not splashed across the pages of newspapers or on TV screens. Even when ordinary citizens of those countries die in unfortunate incidents like accidents or as a result of criminal activities like armed robbery, their families are informed before their names are released to the public. Watch the sort of pictures that are published and broadcast, and you will understand why they respect their dead so much.
Can you imagine the British media publishing the dismembered body of murdered soldier Lee Rigby who was hacked to death by terrorists in Woolwich? There would have been a national outcry so loud that the offending media group would have suffered an unbelievable loss of audience and revenue. In Sierra Leone, things just happen like that and we all appear too scared to speak out.
State broadcaster, SLBC has particular programmes that are not subject to any rules of media ethics. They have hundreds of citizen journalists who are busy taking pictures all over the place and feeding them into the state broadcaster. The producers broadcast those pictures without regard for ethics. I have seen the gory details of bodies in the mortuary, badly-damaged bodies at accident scenes, absolutely rude pictures of individuals in sleazy places, fed through the noses of many people who have no choice but to watch SLBC. What point are they trying to make?
How is it that medical people allow TV cameras to roam freely in hospital facilities, filming Ebola isolation wards and even wards where ordinary patients are admitted. I am not asking them to wield a stick against journalists and everyone carrying a smart phone but hospitals are controlled areas even for families visiting their relatives admitted there.
I have taken personal action by unsubscribing from the most unethical of these chat rooms and Unfriended some of those who in my view are most guilty of constantly intruding into the grief of others on Facebook. But that's a one-man action. Thousands more people have joined up to those sites since I left and life goes on. But communities must never feel powerless to act against news organisations that treat their dead so insensitively. A weak shout of disgust, is still a shout.
The people of the English city of Liverpool took on the might of The Sun newspaper which was easily the bestselling until it recently lost that status to the Daily Mail, and won. On the 15th of April 1989, what is now known as the Hillsborough Disaster occurred at Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield during an FA Cup match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. 96 Liverpool fans were crushed to death.
At the time, The Sun reported that some fans pick-pocketed the dead and urinated on police. You can imagine the outcry that followed those comments. The people of Liverpool organised a very effective boycott of The Sun which has stuck for more than 20 years, despite at least two public apologies. Even after an official inquiry blamed the police for failing to properly control the number of people who entered the stadium on that day, the boycott is still in place. So as I said, ordinary people must never feel too weak to act against unethical and unprofessional journalism.
I understand President Ernest Bai Koroma will address the nation tonight as we go into the three-day lockdown. He may have done his speech already but I plead with him to add a line about the insensitivity and unnecessary stigmatisation of Ebola victims and their families now going on in social media chat rooms operated by Sierra Leoneans. I am not sure that will make significant difference to people bent on gung-ho journalism or outright mischief-making. But it will be on record that the president himself called on his people to respect their dead compatriots and their families. Thank you sir!
Those who are with me so far, may be tempted to ask about the responsibility of the Independent Media Commission in the regulation question I raised elsewhere in this piece. Please don't. The IMC has not had its full complement of commissioners since May this year and the Act that created the institution is more than 10 years behind all the revolution in telecommunications technology and legislative practices.
I spent six years as a media regulator on the IMC Board and I have spent the last six months since I left doing very substantial work on my experiences and the modern trends in media regulation which I hope to complete in about a year or so. But I have to say that in terms of the regulatory instruments, meaning the laws, the technical equipment and the broad public support that the IMC requires to perform its functions properly, there is nothing to look up to.
Media regulation anywhere in the world is a difficult thing but it's even more difficult in Sierra Leone where media colleagues largely see the institution as an enemy while the public and politicians, in particular, think the media regulator must always go around with a sledge hammer to deal with every little breach of the media code.
I heard last night that urgent measures were being put in place to complete the parliamentary process of getting the elected and appointed IMC commissioners to work. It may be too late in the day for the harm that has already been done, but I wish the new commissioners all the best. I warn however that merely electing them and sending them to the IMC is not the issue. The real issue for SLAJ members is respecting the institution and its decisions, so that even where people disagree with them, the dignity of the commissioners of the institution is kept intact.
The IMC can be a lonely place.
(C) Politico 18/09/14
