Newspapers vs. Iron Lady
Apparently the President said something the other day about being angry at some newspapers for irresponsible reporting, and called for the creation of some kind of watchdog group to monitor their behavior. For better or for worse, the newspapers are treating her words as a grave threat, not least because they’re used to Taylor and his predecessors, who controlled the media with violence and intimidation. I would never advocate for any government doing anything to censor or control the media, outside of a well-crafted slander law. But some of the newspapers here are really painful to read, just pay-to-play hatchet jobs.
posted by Josh Nice at Friday, August 25, 2006
1 Comments:
The Press Union of Liberia is really bellyaching about this, which is fine, but they won't face facts and admit that the President is right: there's a real problem. Last night I heard a radio panel with like 5 reporters and editors vs. an Adminstration spox, and nobody would fess up to the fact that many newspapers are in the regular habit of taking money for their reporting. It's a broken system with lots of perverse incentives, and the product really suffers. And unfortunately the media aren't about to start talking about it in their own pages, so the debate doesn't happen. Props again to the New Democrat newspaper for pledging not to take money for coverage.
Post a Comment
<< Home