The standard reporters Samsideen Ceesay and SalieuJallow said that “whatever was published ran contrary to what was said to the reporter.” Were they present during the investigation of the reporter? Did they listen to a recorded version of the interview? How do they know that what was published was contrary to what was said to the reporter?
Investigative journalism is different from spoon feeding journalism where you publish reactions to articles as facts and use it as a base to discredit reports.
The caption “Women gardener describes Foroyaa report as false and baseless”, published in the front page of the Standard Newspaper of 27 January 2016 speaks volumes about the unprofessionalism and hair splitting tendencies of the writers. The content of the article confirms that they have reduced themselves to rabid apologists of those who were dissatisfied with the article but were mature enough to at least give promises that the constraints mentioned in the Foroyaa report were being addressed.
The duty of a newspaper is to publish the truth in good faith in the public interest. A report is considered to be false and baseless if one provides evidence to refute the points and figures it seeks to present as facts. There is investigative journalism and spoon-fed journalism. The investigative journalists gather and publish facts. The spoon-fed journalist only publishes raw opinions. Unless the standard reporters tell the public that they were present when the Foroyaa reporter was conducting the interview or that they have heard a recording of the interview it would be groundless to publish that “What was reported was contrary to what was said to the reporter.”
It is unfortunate that a woman who was just speaking her mind so that she could gain assistance from any source could be manipulated to think that she was speaking against a President who may have made promises to give them assistance. That is certainly not the interest of Foroyaa. If the interview has caused the woman any inconvenience to the point of wanting to make a retraction, one should assist her to write a rejoinder or give another interview to the reporter to state her censored position. A seasoned member of the media fraternity would have given her such a wise counsel.
