THE POWER AND POWERLESSNESS OF THE SOCIAL MEDIA

Everyone who has been following this struggle certainly understands the powers that the media especially the social media has. We cannot deny the potentials and the clutch it has given to this struggle. While we keep praising the media and our top media men and women of the struggle, it is also important to note that the social media has equally done more harm to the struggle.

Seasoned and trained journalists should certainly know the meaning of Muckraking. If the word is not a journalism jargon, then certainly it has something to do with it. Simply, it means someone who investigates corruption, political and other high profile cases and blow alarm to the public. They form a tight knit of investigative and campaigning journalists ready to put their heads on the balance for the public to be informed. Their prominence was seen in the progressive period in the USA (1890-1920). The term was publicized the more in 1906 by President Roosevelt during a speech from which he could draw from a 17th Century Allegory of pilgrims. Prominent amongst American Muckrakers were Frank Norris, Jacob Riis, Ida Tarbell, Upton Sinclair and many others. The by and large was that these men of the media changed the dynamics in American civil right history. They investigated corruption, killings, crimes, marginalization and many more societal issues and reported to the public. ,maybe they could not live to tell the stories, but many history books today cite their names as those top Muckrakers of all times.

Now coming back to the Ambazonian case, it may be too naïve to think that our top edged journalists on the social media can or will be written one day as our Muckrakers. While we appreciate what they do to inform us, it is also important that we caution them on the things they write. The desire to be the first to publish is destroying the revolution. I wonder if at all they discuss with each other before hitting their headlines.

Our men and women of the media have refused to differentiate between news and lies. Anything that falls on their plate is ready for consumption. They dish it out to the public without checking the veracity of the information. They have also not learn that in crisis period, the media most know sensitive and defense issues that can be kept away from the public. It is important that they take off time and understand that the lives of people matter in this Revolution. I may also understand the difficulties in getting information given the situation on the ground. That to me does not justify lies telling or dishing out information that could have been kept within the cycles. I will challenge them to form a social media union so to speak where they can equally discuss and agree on what to report. That will help to ease cooperation amongst them and in that spirit help to reduce fake news and unwanted propaganda on the media.

Again they can through this get support for on line course on how to report during a period like this and also how to throw out propaganda to their followers. Those who have read about the Nigerian/Biafra war certainly know of one Okokonde who was a great war reporter and propagandist. Okokonde will twist a good fairlure to a good victory for the Biafrans and this inspired the great Ijukwu to get him into his cabinet. By this, an not saying war is the way out but our journalist if they work together, then foreign media will take them serious and can start publishing our cases. Armchair reporting is a very bad type of journalism. I know all of you are in different WhatsApp groups. Please avoid just picking stories from there and start developing without finding out if it is true.

On the other hand, we the people are also not doing good to the struggle. We are quick and rushing to publish fake news on daily basis. Some people find pleasure in attacking each other rather than attacking the real problems that we have. Check, some of our popular names of Facebook go to their profiles and you will see that they have forgotten about the struggle but hang on to attacks on groups. If you are one of them, please revise your notes and sit up.

Atanga Belmondo Achiri, PhD Fellow

South Africa