Trump put media ethics to test

It was a case of unusual editorial decision. Key global television stations decided to cut away a 16-minute speech by US President Donald Trump (pictured) loaded with allegations of illegal votes in favour of his rival Joe Biden.

The outgoing US president alleged a conspiracy theory by the democrats to fraudulently oust him from the White House in the just concluded highly contested elections that saw the election of Biden, the President-elect.

Leading TV stations; NBC News, ABC and CBS that would ordinarily draw a viewership of over 20 million in an evening broadcasts cut off the speech. The TV stations termed the speech as full of unchecked facts and a complete departure from the tenets and ethical principles of journalism. In about 30 seconds into the speech, MSNBC TV was the first station to cut Trump off air. The station’s commentator Brian Williams was assertive, thus; “here were are again in the unusual position of not only interrupting the President of United States but correcting the President of the United States”.

This was one of the noticeable ethical actions at display by the foreign media and could be a turning point in the practice of journalism. It brought into fore the ethical principle of truth and accuracy and how the same can shape public opinion on the role of the media.

The interruption of live broadcast of a leader of the most powerful nation in the world was rare and candid show of professionalism. It drew a sharp contrast to just concluded elections in Tanzania where President John Pombe Magufuli was elected into office for the second term. The media fraternity here had less chance to exercise their professionalism and media freedoms.

For example, it started with a barricade of social media platforms, just before the election. For the mainstream media, the non-local media practitioners were required to ‘partner’ with the local media- meaning any reportage on elections had some sorts of gate-keeping procedure. This posed less media independency, a sign of blatant disregard to media freedom. This scenario has been common place in most of African countries during elections.

The principle of truth and accuracy requires of any professional media outlet to get the facts right, check anything that is check-able before transmitting for public (s) consumption. This was exactly applied by the media covering the US general elections. US Today, one of the leading newspaper in USA removed Trump’s video recording in its online platform with its editor saying, “our job is to spread the truth, not unfounded conspiracies”.

For the media industry, this scenario has presented an opportunity to revisit the cardinal principles of journalism namely truth and accuracy, independence, fairness and impartiality, humanity and accountability, among others.

The talk- in radio or talk shows especially hosted by FM stations should be the first stop in re-evaluating key ethical provisions of the media practice. The Media Council of Kenya (MCK) Act 2013, brings out accuracy and fairness as one of guiding principles of the media practice.

Even with these regulations, cases of character assassination, divisive political voices, incitements have become a common discourse in some talk shows. This has put doubts on the application of ethical provisions that the media industry should adhere to. For example, MCK points it is ethical that comments shall be sought from anyone who is mentioned in an unfavorable context and evidence of such attempts to seek comments shall be kept.

Since the liberalisation of airwaves in Kenya from 1996, majority of FM radio stations have continued to thrive on ‘unregulated’ debates during their phone-in call programmes or talk shows. This violates accountability. Even with this era of digital revolution that has paved the way for interactive communication, it is time to re-visit ethics governing media practice.

-The writer @kimutaingeno12, is a communication practitioner. [email protected]