ITV and BBC on Rwanda: Journalistic ethics on the cross

The recent interview by a one John Ray of ITV, a British television network, with Jean Kambanda, the Genocide prime minister, who is currently serving a life sentence in Mali, in which he denied his role in committing the Genocide, and ‘justified’ why he armed the militia to kill the Tutsi, was cynical and served to distort facts and influence viewers’ minds using the power of the media to absolve a self-confessed Genocide convict and package him as a victim of injustice. Both the ITV interview of Kambanda and the infamous BBC documentary; ‘Rwanda’s untold story’, by Jane Corbin, did not meet minimum professional standards. They also went against universal journalistic ethics as well as the United Kingdom’s National Union of Journalists Code of Conduct, which lay out the main Principles of British and Irish Journalism since 1936. John Ray and Jane Corbin know very well that one of the fundamental principles of good journalism is an account that is balanced without bias. ITV never interviewed the people in Kabaya where, on November 22, 1992, Kambanda distributed guns to a militia, neither the prosecutors at the ICTR, nor Genocide survivors in Rwanda. Indeed it comes as a surprise for the two UK mainstream media houses that enjoyed respect of the public to stoop too low and compromise their reputation and professional standards, by acting as platforms for denial and trivialization of the 1994 Tutsi Genocide in Rwanda. I see John Ray and Jane Corbin as having been used by political interests as individuals; but again I ask myself what about their superiors or editors who approved the programmes to be aired without minding the reputation of their otherwise respectable media houses? Did the editors also become victims of manipulation by political interests, or did they rely too much on their producers and never bothered to review their work? Most probable, it is an agreed editorial line. It appears as though the two European TV networks, otherwise known to respect the “ABC” principle of journalistic ethics; accurate, balanced and credible programmes, have either taken it upon themselves or accepted to violate the golden rules of journalism when it comes to reporting about Rwanda’s tragic history, specifically of the Genocide against the Tutsi. The trend of mainstream media being manipulated to deliberately feed audiences with falsehoods is not new and the evil is more prominent in developed countries which keep reminding developing countries, especially in Africa, that they are the role models on everything. Media analysts point to Western mainstream media as gradually losing public trust because journalists and media organisations have allowed compromising their moral and professional obligation to report ethically. The coverage by the Western media of the 2003 invasion of Iraq is a case in point, where lies overshadowed the truth about the war, and the news stories were crafted to influence viewers’ minds to believe that Saddam Hussein was a terrorist who had to be eliminated. This is the same psychology the UK media is using; to bias viewers to believe that Genocide convicts like Kabanda are innocent, while those who stopped the Genocide, like Gen Karenzi Karake, are the ones responsible for the Genocide. In a study conducted by the University of Maryland in the U.S. in 2003 on American public opinion about the Iraq war, it was found that 57 per cent of mainstream media viewers believed that Iraq was directly involved in the Sept.11 attack in U.S.; 69 per cent believed that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the Sept. 11 attack, while 64 per cent of the total news sources were in favour of the Iraq war and many believed weapons of mass destruction had been found! The study is an eye opener on how the power of the media can be used to distort facts and influence viewers and readers to believe what is not true. After the Iraq invasion, The New York Times apologised for the misinforming coverage of the alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction programmes, but to other media outlets it was and still is the usual way of doing business. Good journalism begins with personal ethics of good morals, character and responsibility to be custodians of the truth while serving public interest rather than self. Mr Ray and Ms Corbin’s Service to Genocide deniers is akin to dancing on the graves of one million victims of the Genocide against the Tutsi while survivors and relatives are watching in dismay; its inhuman and insensitive to the feelings of Rwandans. Kevin Howley, a media expert, attributes the loss of public trust in Western mainstream media to a diminishing human spirit and greed for profit. What Rwandans should know is that the power of the media has for decades been used for the wrong reasons against humanity. People like Joseph Goebbels used the Das Reich in the Nazi propaganda during the Holocaust; Slobodan Milosevic, from 1986 to the 90s, used radio and television propaganda in planning and executing the genocide against Bosnian Muslims; while in Rwanda, the Kambanda’s, Kantano, Ngeze Hassan and others, used radio RTLM and Kangura to incite the Tutsi genocide in 1994. ITV’s John Ray and BBC’s Jane Corbin have hung their professional ethics on the cross, by serving interests of the genocidaires in their last phase of genocide, to propagate the double genocide theory, denial and distortion of history by turning convicts into innocents and the heroes who stopped the Genocide into villains. mbandagerald@hotmail.com

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ITV and BBC on Rwanda: Journalistic ethics on the cross