Last year, both locally and abroad, a few public figures made comments that drew a wildly fake link between the Covid-19 virus and the arrival of 5G. The comments were utter nonsense: there is no scientific evidence behind them whatsoever. But social media picked them up and ran with them. People on social media who start an outraged tweet with “If this is true then…” ran riot.
It’s not the role of reporters to simply report what one party said and then get comment from the other side. Reporters are more than just society’s stenographers; the job comes with way more responsibility than that. A good reporter should interrogate the veracity and credibility of an allegation before perpetuating it and lending it undue credibility. Fortunately, this kind of informed scrutiny largely occurred in this example.
It’s tough in the media sector. Publications and media providers across South Africa were hit hard by the Covid-19 shutdowns, the third and fourth waves, and the consequent lack of advertising revenue. News reporting has become a minefield, with a plethora of fake news threatening to drown out the truth.
To help drive media freedom and ongoing access to trusted information, at the end of 2021, MTN added to its donation of half a million rand to the South African National Editors’ Forum by providing a further R400 000 to the organisation. The focus of this donation is to fund the safety training of journalists. MTN also gave R400 000 to the Association of Independent Publishers.
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