DOES“SOLI”… AFFECT THE OBJECTIVITY, ACCURACY AND FAIRNESS IN NEWSGATHERING.
Solidarity popularly referred to as “soli” among journalists according to the Oxford advanced dictionary means “support by one person or group of people for another because they share feelings, opinions, aims, etc”.
In the first place, “soli” is given to a journalist most at times in order to cater for the costs incurred by the journalist during the process of newsgathering. This money is normally paid to the journalist by the organization, individual or entity that the information is about. However, it is not obligatory to that entity to bear that cost because it is assumed that the journalist is also not obliged to publish the item if it is not newsworthy. That is, the moment the journalist takes such money from that entity, he assumes that so far as his transportation cost and other things have been catered for, he has to publish the item by hook or crook.
A journalist is obliged by the ethics of the profession to report nothing but the truth. In this democratic economy in which there is freedom of speech, it is important for the journalist to report freely so far as it is the truth. If a journalist attends a press conference of one political party and all that is said is propaganda about another political party, it is up to the journalist to probe further by contacting the other party involved for their side of the story so as to publish a balanced story. It also helps him to be fair objective and reliable. However, if a journalist receives a fat envelope after the conference, he is likely to present the story as it is and just state that “all efforts to contact the other party involved proved futile” meanwhile he never even made the attempt to contact anyone because he wanted to please the party involved. Here, he would not be fair and accurate in his reportage because he has presented a one sided-story which lacked accuracy.
If the journalist takes soli, he tends to provide news with fear or favour which means he does not present a representative picture of all constituent groups in the society especially in the multi ethnic society forgetting he owns a loyalty to citizens. The commitment to citizens is the basis of news organizations credibility.
A journalist should seek out multiple witnesses, disclosing as much as possible about sources or asking various sides for comment. He needs to verify information for truth and accuracy before publishing in order to present a fair publication. If he does not do this because he has been given money to publish a particular story about someone, he becomes bias and unfair to the other party involved and is likely to lose credibility.
If one day a journalist is sitting behind his desk at his office and someone walks in, puts on his desk a story and with it is an envelope containing a huge sum of money and the person tells him that he wants that story published, all the journalist will do is to contact the party involved in the story for his comment and in publishing the story will give prominence to the person who brought the story and dedicate only about one or two paragraphs to the other party because he paid no money for his views to be given prominence. If he does that however ethically, he is not being fair although he published both views because he gave prominence to one party than the other. He also does not become objective.
Sometimes also, the journalist may attend a programme and may not be given any money to cater for his transport or it could also be that he would be given money which may not meet his expectations. When this happens, the journalist most at times will not publish the story with the excuse that it is not newsworthy. Even if he does, it will take a very long time and it will be published at the corner of a page which will be difficult to be noticed by readers.
On the other hand, if the journalist is given a big amount of money, the story is likely to be broadcasted that day in the major bulletin and may be headlined (electronic media) or published the next day (print media) and is likely to get a headline or win the front page.
In summary, publishing news items generally apart from special reports, the larger the amount of your money, the more space and prominence you get. The lesser you pay, the less prominence you get.
