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Like in many countries, South Africa’s media space, particularly in daily news, is fraught with many challenges, including staff shortages and budget cuts, generally declining audiences and/or advertising revenue, and massive pressure to be first with the story.
The business of news is a difficult one.
However, these challenges cannot be used as justification for misinforming the public through stories that are poorly researched, or show no evidence of research at all.
Last year’s #FeesMustFall protests gave us a glimpse into some of the shortcomings in newsrooms, where we saw incorrect fee increase numbers, very little (if any) fact-checking (particularly of university claims), and a failure to engage and understand the nuances and interests at play.
While this may not apply to every outlet, there are concerning trends regarding reporting on numbers. Often what is reported are data, and newsrooms fail to do the legwork of finding out the context of the data, and then present this to readers and/or listeners as information.
The result is that, intentionally or unintentionally, we misinform news consumers.
A recent example of widespread misinformation was the reporting on the cost of damage to property at public universities.
Instead of calling universities to find out if they were insured (which the state-owned insurance company Sasria claims they are), whether they were under- or overinsured and, if underinsured, where the shortfall would come from, many news outlets went with the illogical “R100 million worth of damage would have paid for X number of degrees” – but insurance payouts can’t and shouldn’t fund student fees.
And if the cost of repairs is being passed on to fees, there’s been a general failure to find out why that is and what is happening within university budgeting processes.
Poorly researched content either comes though because editors and journalists are chasing clicks (over providing credible information) or they are simply not doing what should be standard research, and both scenarios are equally concerning.
The power of reporting and what is seen as “news” is immense, and we cannot treat thorough, responsible and careful journalism as the exception, or as some kind of unicorn that evades newsrooms. Not when that kind of thorough work should be at the core of everything we do.
Particularly in an election year, it is vital that we are responsible because we can be better. Ultimately, those who read and listen to us deserve better.
Follow me on Twitter @GugsM
