Patriotic journalism – what is it and why we should avoid it |06 May 2021
On Monday May 3, media practitioners across the globe including those in Seychelles commemorated World Press Freedom Day, an occasion meant to highlight the importance of free press and remind governments of their duty to help uphold these liberties.
A day later, in the health press briefing to address the increased Covid-19 cases, the journalists were called to practice a more patriotic form of journalism.
Local journalists were told that it is essential for the media to pass on correct and verified information, and to broadcast or publish the information using the right context – a fair point.
Journalists and media houses should endeavour to provide contextualised information, and not to oversimplify and misrepresent facts in their news reporting.
Patriotic journalism however does not and has never been part of the cornerstones of journalism.
Patriotic journalism defeats the purpose of the free exchange of information that is accurate, fair and thorough because it seeks to promote the welfare of the state or the republic over truth and factual reporting.
Often related to the coverage of wars and terrorist attacks, or on the extent of nationalist sentiments in a country, patriotism journalism sees the adoption of a more empathetic news angle in solidarity with the country or a large group of persons.
It is important to thus highlight that the role of non-biased media practitioners is to print or broadcast information from credible sources, often adding the inputs of experts – it is not our place and hopefully will never be our place in this modern era of journalism to actively push the agenda of any interested parties.
As much as one loves his or her country, ‘patriotism journalism’ deviates from objective or neutral model of journalism. It is further unfair to place these types of expectations on the media, as the public tends to listen to such as authoritative directions and some may disregard the fact that ‘patriotic journalism’ is not the role of news outlets. For those who might have forgotten, as one of the pillars of democracy, the media has the role to inform, educate, listen to and voice out the opinions of those in the society, from the highest echelon to the grassroots.
Criticisms from the general public are necessary to help media outlets pinpoint their faults and wrongdoings at times, but are not warranted just because the facts reported do not suit our opinions, political beliefs and stance.
Case in point would be when Seychelles re-opened its borders earlier this year and several international media outlets, from Good Morning Britain on ITV to Bloomberg, erroneously cited that the country had already vaccinated over 90% of its population by March 25, 2021.
At that point, Seychelles had only fully inoculated 48% of its targeted population of 70,000 – and 34% of its total population – with 90% of the targeted population having received the first dose only.
This information lent well to the reopening of the borders and no one came out to point out the misrepresentation of the statistics or ask those media outlets to contextualize further.
As the country moves on from the vestiges of the past and the media and the authorities solidify their symbiotic relationship, it is important for us to not forget how far the media industry has come over the course of recent years and how far it has yet to go.
Elsie Pointe