Western reporting: Never swallow everything hook, line and sinker

Editor, I wish to share my comments on Joseph Rwagatare’s article, “On Rwanda media is creative but not truthful” (The New Times, May 6). For reasons that are not yet clear, Rwanda has become a favourite target of sustained propaganda attacks from Western media organisations, including ostensibly respected outlets like BBC, VOA, AP, Reuters, CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Times. The last two, still considered Americas preeminent news institutions, have nevertheless become no more than pale imitations of what they used to be, trading on long faded reputations. I do not include any of the large number of French state media (AFP, F2, F3, F4, F5, F6, France24, TV5, RFI, and their many affiliates). Their coverage on Rwanda, like that of their supposedly private but highly state-influenced news organisations like Libération, Le Monde and Le Figaro, is highly correlated to the climate of Franco-Rwandan relations which are mostly atrocious or just hostile. Western media reporting on Rwanda may be generally characterised as assertions of Government wrong-doing without bothering to present any shred of evidence beyond bar-room gossip or accusations from people with an interest in painting the Government of Rwanda in the worst possible light. This is now the sad “standard” of the Western media “reporting” on Rwanda. The degeneration is now so general one doesnt even feel it is possible to point to specific news outlets and journalists as being the most egregious abusers of what used to be claimed as journalistic standards of objective reporting. The task would be truly Herculean. Not surprisingly, few of us still believe anything reported by the Western media on anything. Our default position now, having witnessed their “reporting” on Rwandan developments with which we are directly acquainted, is that nothing they say is trustworthy; they are shameless liars. To paraphrase Mary McCarthy on fellow American writer Lilian Hellman, “Everything they report is a lie, including “the” and “and””. Mwene Kalinda, Rwanda

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Western reporting: Never swallow everything hook, line and sinker