Debunking The Story Alone Was Not Enough

From: Stephen A. Quaye, Toronto-Canada.

Anyone who read the story about the mass rape purported to have happened at a place near Kintampo last week where armed robbers forced male passengers to rape female passengers on the bus felt bad.

The section where a suppose near victim told her story giving an eye witness account to what might have happened saying she was spared because she was in her menstrual mood made everyone who read the story went crazy asking so what are these robbers up to that even their loots can not satisfy them.

But as they sound wicked and doing more harm to their victims after robbing them little did one suspect that the story was fallacy and that nothing of that sort took place anywhere as has been reported.

Not quite long ago, we read about a story where armed robbers after robbing a filling station operator shot him right in front of his wife despite getting all that they wanted. Other incidents have happened else where that these wicked” asses of evil” after looting their victims made their husbands look on as they had sex with their wives in turns. Really the security has to do something about the rate of armed robberies in Ghana now.

As we were talking about the news and expressing our sympathy to the suppose victims of this heinous crime, then the news came “gban” the police public relations directorate has debunked the story that nothing of that sort happened anywhere and that it was a fallacy.

“What” I asked myself so who was deceiving who especially where a respected radio station in Accra has hosted a near victim as an eye witness? It was very difficult to believe what the Inspector General of Police [IGP] Paul Tawiah Quaye and his subordinates were saying but it carried a little weight when the president also came out saying it was not true.

Therefore who was telling the truth? Was it the radio station through the host and the near victim or the police directorate? The president debunking the story could not be challenged much because he based his argument on what the police boss said to him but still debunking the story was not enough.

Come with me and you will understand why just debunking the story was not enough. Before going on air with such story did the host do any check on the story before coming out with it? Did he as a matter of verifying the authenticity of the story asked the near victim whether she lodged complain at any police station or whether she was aware any of the victims has lodged a complaint at a police station.

Did the host charged its reporter in charge of the region where the area forms part to double check the facts before going on air and last but not the least did he put in any little effort in cross checking the story with the transport union to know the number of the bus, the driver to also cross check the story from him?

From the look of things all these verification exercise was never conducted before airing the story making the police to punch holes in the story creating doubts in people’s minds that the radio station really did a good journalistic job.

With these questions unanswered I think the police have to go beyond debunking the story and investigate to find the culprits who spread falsehood and punish them to serve as deterrent to others.

Just by the simple truth that this has not happened once but has been happening all the time where certain faceless chaps concoct stories make their way through in airing them on radio stations or publish them in news papers to create fear and panic which is not healthy for the country.

It happened to the president when he had traveled to South Africa to seek medical attention when a story broke out that he was dead where in fact he was not and that story created panic and fear among a section of the Ghanaians both at home and overseas.

It also happened to Kinapharma Company where it was reported that the company was hiding behind production of medicines and has been importing cocaine into the country only to find out later the story was not true.

Then it also happened to former President J.A.Kufuor that he abused his office as the president by having extra marital affair with a white lady called Jezel Yadzi which the lady has been threatening to come into the country and strip the former president naked only to realize that lady is perpetrating falsehood.

If in America a parent could be fined for spreading falsehood that his child had flew away in a balloon kite only for the security agencies to spend time, energy and money to trace the balloon and safe the life of the child but find out later that the child never flew the balloon so in Ghana we can fine the purported near victim for false hood that created fear and panic.

Readers will agree with me that spreading of falsehood is becoming too much in our media landscape making the people lose confidence in our journalists, radio stations, news papers as well as T.V. stations.

Let the media commission, Ghana Journalist Association as well as our renowned journalism scholars like Madam Audrey Gaghykpo take up the mantle to help clean the system. Rejoinders are too much making a meaning in what Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel wrote in their book “THE ELEMNETS OF JOURNALISM’.

In chapter four titled Journalism of verification, they wrote,” in many ways, the modern press culture is weakening the methodology of verification that journalists have developed, if not adequately named or codified .Technology is part of it.

It challenged that,” in the age of 24 hour news cycle, journalists now spend more time looking for something to add to the existing news, usually interpretation, than trying to independently discover and very new facts.

“Once a story is hatched, it is as if all the herd behavior is true. The story is determined by one medium-one newspaper or TV account…….Partly because news organizations are being consolidated and partly because of electronic reporting, we all feed at the same trough” said Geneva Overholser, a journalist.

Let us stop concocting and spreading of falsehood because in the end it does not help anybody but rather waste time, energy and resources as it also takes precious time to heal the wounds such falsehood might have cause to people and make the environment calm.

End.