If you’re anything like us you enjoy keeping an eye on news coming out of North Korea. You’ll hear all about Kim Jong-un committing horrific acts against his people from the world’s media, but take a dip at reading government-controlled news from the region and you’re in for a treat.

It might be fun to rubberneck from a distance but the problem is the gross amount of misinformation those poor citizens are subject to. You know, a skewing of the truth to better suit a clear government agenda aimed at pulling the wool over the eyes of its people.

Thank goodness we are spared such horrors here at home, although if you ask current SABC chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng he might not be as appalled by that one-eyed reporting. In a televised debate on panel show State of the Media Hlaudi accused lecturers and tertiary institutions of poisoning their students against their own country. Below from News24:

In the debate, sponsored by the SABC and Eskom, Motsoeneng said this happened because lecturers had their own views and did not deal with the facts.

“If you take anyone from tertiary level… they are excited, new, energetic. At editorial level, you sit and you ask them, ‘Can you come [up] with a very good story?’ You know what will be a good story? Corruption.

“That is any journalist. When you talk about a good story, it’s corruption for them. We need to change the mindset of journalists”…

“For us, it is important to portray the country in a positive way. Because there are so many good stories that [are] happening. But… especially [with] print media, it’s more negative stories.

“Where are the positive stories? Have you ever seen positive stories leading the headlines?” asked Motsoeneng.

I think we get what you are saying Hlaudi, but the media has long played the role of watchdog and to brush over government inadequacies reeks of, well, a propaganda-like approach. Perhaps someone up top has had a word with you to, um, monitor what news the SABC encourages their journalists to seek out? The more conspiratorial out there might even say his controversial appointment (he may not have been honest about his qualifications) made it seem like he was handpicked but we’ll leave that one alone for now.

Mind you it’s not just the SABC head honchos who are towing the government line, this below from The New Age editor Moegsien Williams:

[He] was concerned by the recent “almost bloody-minded adversarial approach” that the media had adopted, especially towards the government.

“And it has created the perception, especially in the ruling party… that we in the media have kind of put ourselves in the position of the opposition, and that is unfortunate.” This was through choosing to focus on the most negative aspects of what the ruling ANC was doing, he said.

“I believe tension between government and the [media] is good, but… this attempt to pull down whatever government is doing, is… going to be a very serious problem,” Williams warned.

Then there’s letter writing apologist Steven Motale, the current editor of the Citizen, who believes media objectivity is a myth:

Most of the time, journalists “conveniently” omit that Zuma was acquitted after his rape trial, and nobody has investigated “with the same rigour” as the rape allegations, Zuma’s claim that the rape allegation was a plot, he said.

“If we do it, it will reveal the truth that is very very uncomfortable and that is not in line with our agenda – the agenda to portray the ruling party as a party that is led by men and women who are morally bankrupt,” he said to applause.

I think as a country we are all tired of reading and writing about violent crime, corruption and all the other awful stories we normally find splashed across the front page. Perhaps the onus then lies rather at the feet of those running the show to turn the tide, to make those stories fewer and farther between, rather than telling journalists to turn a blind eye and stop being so nasty to our poor government.

Meanwhile in North Korea Kim Jong-un nailed three more hole-in-ones yesterday, then flew a plane over some fertile farm land where ample food was grown for his citizens. The world watched on, shaking their heads at how unfair it is to mislead the masses through a media that only tells the stories the government wants them to hear.

[source:news24]