What Anas is doing is pure detective investigative work, not really journalism. He may have started his working life as a journalist but he has now gone far beyond that and is in the realms of investigation.
If someone se ... read full comment
What Anas is doing is pure detective investigative work, not really journalism. He may have started his working life as a journalist but he has now gone far beyond that and is in the realms of investigation.
If someone sets up a company and employs people who may, or may not, be trained journalists, to go underground to investigate certain aspects of society, then the guy is no longer practicing journalism. The fact that he makes a film of his investigations or writes articles about them does not bring his work into the mainstream of journalism.
Anas is now doing more investigation than journalism. Perhaps we should start calling him a detective rather than an investigative journalist.
The writers of this article have failed grossly to discuss the real "conscience" aspects of Anas' work which are found in the following concerns:
1. By bribing a public official as a test, has he, Anas, not also committed an offense? It is an offense to bribe a public official. You cannot really defend yourself by saying you are making an experiment.
2. By actually succeeding in bribing a public official and having murderers and armed robbers actually released, impeding the proper flow of justice and denying the victims of the released criminals the satisfaction of seeing the criminals punished, is Anas' conscience not pricked?
3. When Anas invades somebody's privacy, what does his conscience tell him? How far can he go in the invasion of others' privacy in the proper performance of his work?
4. Is Anas an agent provocateur - one who brings about the commission of a crime that would, otherwise, not have been committed?
This article fails to address these contentious issues and is rather talking about whether Anas is a spiritualist (a bagatelle), whether he exaggerates his things (all journalists do that), dragging his nation in the mud (only a few people make that accusation). These are not the issue of conscience facing Anas.
Then the writers make the illogical conclusion (often made by many Ghanaians) that Anas has received awards for his work - as if that wipes away the contentious issues of the real conscience.
What Anas is doing is pure detective investigative work, not really journalism. He may have started his working life as a journalist but he has now gone far beyond that and is in the realms of investigation.
If someone se ...
read full comment