WASHINGTON DC: The Oxford English Dictionary has released its word of 2016 and it is “Post-truth”. Post-truth is defined as an adjective “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”
I am both a journalist and creative writer. Journalism concerns itself with the truth. The news story must always contain facts. On the other hand, creative writing seeks to showcase imaginative powers in storytelling. The latter seeks the richness of language to peep into what is life in front of us. Creative writing can be a form of journalism, when long narratives are captured in non-fiction accounts. Hence many journalists the world over are respected to publish riveting memoirs, which would normally be a culmination of their news work over a number of years. Creative writing also lends itself as a technique that is used to craft literary forms in the fiction genre, including but not limited to: mystery, suspense, drama, sci-fiction, thriller, historical fiction and so forth. The two forms of writing complement each other, when usefully employed. Creative writing accords a journalist an expanded vocabulary to tap from, when working on the news stories even with the pressure of deadlines. Creative writing is a stream in the English degree just like linguistics or literature, hence often times, students majoring in this stream would have a better grasp of the language than students enrolled for the journalism degree. To have both sides is a plus for anyone who enjoys writing.
Many a journalists believe that a number of lawsuits brought about by their stories lacking depth and balance can pass for excellence. Check your facts and balance the story before you can claim to be a celebrity, who is hounded by detractors for a sterling work.
The ‘post-truth’ phenomenon has come to the fore of debate especially in the wake of the British Exit from the European Union, and more authoritatively, in the 2016 American Presidential election, whose outcome still has tongues wagging and will be for sometime after the inauguration in January. Just how could respected media houses miss to tell us the truth that they have been respected for over the decades ÔÇô beats logic! When I penned an analysis published in the Sunday Standard of 09 May 2016 ÔÇô I projected a win for candidate Donald J. Trump, amidst a harsh media scepticism. My position was simple. Everyone has known who this man was over the years. He stood alongside tested politicians in the Republican party and defeated them one-by-one even as he was spewing all kinds of insults and malice to the various demographics of the United States. In the article, I projected that when all votes were tallied on November 09th, Donald J. Trump would be the president of the United States. Yeah, an average reader dismissed this as just an opinion piece, and I pardon you for that especially when CNN, BBC, New York Times, The Telegraph and all the pollsters who have always with precision, predicted the outcome of the elections were favouring Hillary R. Clinton.
But that is where everyone got it wrong. If this race was a facebook ‘like’ or ‘dislike’, there was no doubt Hillary would have trounced Donald badly. But an election is not about what the media personalities like or prefer ÔÇô free, fair and open election exercise always reflects the will of the people and that is why, any true democrat would hurry to be the first national leader to congratulate someone who has earned his position through the ballot, right? Like my learned friend, Botsalo Ntuane laments, “…American people, how could you do this to me?” It is the people who made a choice; Trump is not imposed on their government, and they must learn to respect him the next four years.
Beneath the support that I was clearly seeing of those who backed Mr Trump, I saw those Americans in the ‘neck of the woods’ who would not want to come out to be counted for fear of being labelled racist, sexist and fundamentalist bigots. So if you imagined there was this segment of the population, plus those who have been visible in rallying behind the man, I don’t know how else you would have not seen the victory for Mr Trump as boldly written on the wall. My friend Ntuane wrote that he was shocked and did not see this coming. This is because of the ‘post-truth’ syndrome sweeping across our media houses, where journalists have resigned themselves to being an extension of partisan politics and stooges of politicians. Because the media wield so much power that we always believe them, even when they are not worth our recognition, they dissuade us from the truth that our own eyes can see. Journalists need to see the weight with which they influence public opinion on important matters such as election outcome, and start to behave in a manner that is commensurate with the honour we give them. They need to research their stories; they need to engage with the populations being reported on and bring out balance in their stories. We don’t need reporters who are on the DIS payroll, neither who work for the UDC, nor in cahoots with the BDP. I reminded media heavyweights of warring publications, not long ago that we cannot and we are not children who left school yesterday to be blindfolded into consuming news that is devoid of truth, only because media houses have become spillovers of political institutions.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are living in very interesting times, where to have a fair discussion on a matter such as travel visa that never was an issue just a decade ago, can create a hullabaloo over social platforms with polarization over who is a true patriot or not. We all love Botswana and want Botswana to love us back. Botswana can love us back, if Botswana returned to where it was and continued to be respected by the rest of the world. We cannot just be another African country. We cannot afford isolationism and call it foreign policy. We are a democracy and have been a constitutional republic. One, if not the only hallmark of democracy is to be able to differ with the next person without fearing that by sunset some juntas will have come for you, simply to have exercised your God-given freedom. The media must not leave the engagement and debate of real issues to the social platforms ÔÇô thanks to facebook, where so much is ventilated. Conventional news media must step up to the plate and create a platform, where nationals are encouraged to debate with the view to fix broken furniture and mend our ways as a nation. The media must observe the happenings around our beloved nation and report them truthfully without fear or favour. The media must not just claim to remain neutral. Being neutral is not the solution. The media must be truthful. Truthfulness is not subjective. Nor is truthful situational. It remains what was, what is and what will be. Truthfulness is not remembered. Truthfulness is the only responsibility the media have towards their nations.
Six weeks ago, Sonny Serite before his flight to the United States, took me head-on as he stood in Clinton’s corner and I rooted for Trump. Our duel was never published by the Sunday Standard. I met the young chap and spent two good days together in Manhattan. He gave me a handshake and said, “Bro, I was darn wrong. You were right!” But it is not a reflection of his intelligence that he did not predict right. No, it is the slant and bias of the mainstream media that tipped the scales to where they wanted, so much that so many of my smart friends including the General Secretary of the ruling party got ice water over their faces to rise from the slumber. During the early hours of the polling day, I paid a visit and spent the afternoon (morning in the United States) with my cousin with whom we shared an apartment in Nebraska as university students. Witness said to me, “I have given up on our man winning, moruti.” I told him to wait until the ballots were all counted. He deemed it a waste of time, but I made sure at 05:00 the next morning (late night in America), I woke him up. “I am up ÔÇô Jack woke me up already,” he replied.
Journalists, do your work and do it thoroughly. Do not fear a single person in telling the truth. We are living in a post-truth era, where your professionalism is held in high suspect, and if you play into the hands of those who like to twist the truth, sooner than later, you will have lost your credibility in the eyes of the very same people. Stick to the truth and earn respect from everyone. Don’t sell your soul to the devil because of a short-term gain, he always has the last laugh. Post-truth has cast your vocation as much as it has yourselves under spotlight! It is a simple choice to make: if you want to tell a story that you want us to hear, start penning your reflections into a memoir and toss to a book publisher ÔÇô I did that eight years ago and it is my story that you ought to consume the way I related it. However, if you want to inform us with truthfulness, the newspaper, radio station, television station is where you belong. Just remember if you are the latter, your respect will dwindle by the day if you hype things to your angle, or towards those who fund you. We are not children who left school yesterday ÔÇô we are able to see through what your agenda is and we will punish you ultimately.
