In case you missed it: over the weekend, Mbaks (that would be our sports minister Fikile Mbalula) had a go at Beeld editor Adriaan Basson following a pretty loaded Tweet from the latter. Basson wondered whether Mbaks had used taxpayers’ money to get himself to the fight of the century in Las Vegas. Many came to Mbaks’s defense and some came to Basson’s defense after Mbaks all but accused the editor of having a racist agenda.
I, for one, totally understood Mbaks’s reaction. I would have been royally annoyed by a suggestion that I am corrupt. Should there be concerns that I might be, Twitter is the last place a journalist should be directing such questions. Much as we live in a country with rampant government corruption, Basson’s loaded statement is an immediate assumption that Mbaks is guilty of corruption and that I find unacceptable to say the least. Do your digging and report to your readers (and followers) something that is not your own deeply held mistrust of politicians, particularly black politicians, I should also add. While Basson and other white people might see that kind of criticism as baseless and an attempt to racialise discourse, it isn’t. The policing of black wealth in this country is a real thing. This comes across as such and while Basson and others would say ‘well, it is his job to ask questions’, there’s a way of doing so. You are a person of influence and you are deliberately tweeting something that could be detrimental to someone’s image without even trying to find out what the facts are first. That is wrong and I’m pretty sure the reasons why are obvious.
We do live in those times where social media seems to dictate the news agenda. Just think of where you get your breaking news first or where it is you go when you know that a story is currently breaking. Social media is our first stop. Little wonder then, that social media companies like Facebook, Twitter and even Pinterest, are looking for ways of entering the news media domain. This is according to reports by Business Insider. Twitter reportedly tried entering the media game by buying media start-up mic.com and Facebook is reportedly in talks to have news organisations use their platform to break original content rather than just posting links to their own websites. If this comes to pass, it will be quite interesting to see how this changes the way news is packaged. Will we see more off the cuff, carelessness akin to Basson’s ill-conceived update on Mbaks? I can imagine how this is a possibility considering the instantaneous nature of social media. As a journalist myself, I worry about what this means for my profession and I am especially worried that it opens up the door to a further loss of credibility for our industry. What distinguishes us as the traditional media from, say, an alarmist blogger telling the Afrikaans community that South Africa is on a slippery slope and doing so on no factual basis other than to broadcast a deeply held belief that the country is run by “monkeys”?
The inevitable move towards social media as the leading news platform requires a strengthening of gatekeeping mechanisms if our industry is to retain even a smidgen of credibility in the eyes of ordinary people. With that said, it is great to have these very important discussions openly on social media! It is important that editors also be called out when they err. In the same way that they are keeping those in power in check, they too, because of their power, must be kept in check.
mrblouse 