The media is one of the most credible sources of information to the public. So when it says something, it is often taken as the truth. Yet it’s not uncommon for journalists to pass lies and half-truth as the truth. Or distort facts, for that matter, which the public often take as accurate.
One such i******t was the consistent, but erroneous, reporting that Tanzania’s vice-president Samia Suluhu Hassan is the first female VP in East Africa. It took a hawk-eyed journalist – the Star newspapers public editor Francis Openda – to bust them.
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“Journalists must read widely and research before putting pen to paper or their mouth on the mic,” he wrote on Facebook on Friday. “TV and newspaper journalists have for the past two days misled viewers and readers that Tanzania’s VP Samia Suluhu Hassan is the first female VP in East Africa. They want to say they have never heard of Uganda’s Specioza Naigaga Wandira Kazibwe!!”
In fact, Specioza Naigaga Wandira Kazibwe was vice-president of Uganda from 1994 to 2003. She was the first woman in Africa to hold the position of vice-president of a sovereign nation. In August 2013, she was appointed by the United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon as United Nations Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa.
“Even if you are a journalist born in the 90’s,” Mr Openda writes, “you must read back, present and forth.”
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