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Sunday 22 June 2008

REPORTING AND THE SINGLE SOURCE

Political reporting in the Swazi media is poor because there is little or no attempt on the part of journalists to find out information beyond a single source.

A fully rounded news report on any topic ought to have a variety of voices so that all sides of a story can be covered. This also ensures that all relevant information is included in the report.

This is especially important when the topic being reported about is a matter of controversy.

The recently published research report, His Master’s Voice: Political Reporting in Swaziland 2007, reveals that most political stories in Swaziland media only have one source of information.

According to the report, written by Mary Ellen Rogers and published by the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Swaziland chapter, 55 percent of political stories only had one source of information.

This, the report concludes is the ‘chronic problem in the Swazi media’ and it spreads across newspapers, radio and television.

‘The number of single-sourced stories in political coverage is fairly evenly distributed across all media. Though the Times Sunday had notably fewer single sourced stories (41 percent) than the worst performer, Weekend Observer (68 percent), it still published an extraordinarily high number of single-sourced stories.’

Sources were usually confined to the person who was the subject of the story. For example, if the story was about the Prime Minister denouncing the police union, most reporters would only source the Prime Minister. ‘There was very rarely any effort to take the event/issue to other relevant sources to seek verification, responses, comment or analysis.’

The report says,

‘Adding sources is the most obvious way to deepen information and develop the story. But the monitoring revealed journalists across all media did not regularly source people other than those who were the subject of the event. And broadcasting, in particular, demonstrated a pattern of ignoring relevant sources in favour of government sources.

‘For example, a Swazi TV report of a film industry conference attended by the Minister for Public Service and Information interviewed the Minister only, despite the fact that there were many other non-government sources that would have been more relevant and informative.’

By coincidence (I think) a senior print journalist has also been considering the use of sources by Swazi journalists. Ackel Zwane, writing in the Swazi Observer (13 June 2008), blames the problem of ‘flimsy sourcing’ on the unwillingness of sources ‘to be on the record’.

According to Zwane, Swazi Government officials are among the worst culprits.

‘The sources claim they have been “gagged” by their superiors, especially ministers. This is common in countries such as ours where there is no access-to-information law.

‘Under the circumstances, as in the case of Swaziland, the information is closely guarded against being public and becomes private property of the government of the day.

‘Gagging the government officials, by extension, is gagging the media.’

Zwane continues, ‘The government has been so unwilling to cooperate with the media that journalists have become all too happy to give anonymity to inside sources in exchange for nuggets of information. Even higher-ups simply giving routine briefing sessions often demand anonymity, hence the proliferation of the term “senior government official”’

This problem, Zwane says is also common in the private business sector. He cites the cases of the recent strikes in the textile industries and at Standard Bank as examples where employers would not give information to reporters, forcing them to submit incomplete stories to their editors.

Personally, I think journalists have very real problems if they use anonymous sources. The use of such sources makes it impossible for anyone to rely on and trust the information and analysis that it is contained in the news reports and articles. This means the use of anonymous sources undermines the integrity and standing of the work of journalists and the media generally.

One way around the problem of the use of anonymous sources is for journalists generally to use more sources.

MISA’s report, His Master’s Voice, makes a useful recommendation when it suggests that journalists should have a greater diversity in the role of sources, so that they include analysts and experts or people speaking from personal experience.

Or put another way: the more people you have in your report, the les you need to rely on any one of them individually.

I have the His Master’s Voice report as a PDF file. If you would like a copy email me here. swazimedia@yahoo.com

See also
ANONYMOUS SOURCES

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