SECTOR 4 4.1 The standard of reporting follows the basic principles of accuracy and fairness Both media and civil society members of the panel agreed that the media are not doing enough to report fairly and accurately. This is visible in the large number of corrections that newspapers have to make in their papers. ‘Journalists are not taking the time to do their stories properly in terms of verifying information, fact-checking and ensuring that different angles and voices are captured.’ ‘I have witnessed that sometimes what has been said is not what has been quoted. You provide a copy of the speech, but something else is written and even your name, which is on the speech, is spelled incorrectly.’ ‘As a citizen, I would feel uncomfortable sharing my opinions with the media because the news is inaccurate and distorted.’ ‘You see it in the pocketbooks. People don’t buy newspapers anymore, because often newspapers are taking a tabloid approach.’ Basic elements such as spelling and grammar, reporting on figures and terminologies related to certain communities are often taken for granted, resulting in avoidable errors. ‘For example, you’ll read about a road accident in the different newspapers, but each one will have a different figure on how many people died.’ In line with the above sentiments, a panellist noted that in the 2017 annual report of the media ombudsman, the key issues that most complaints centred on are inaccurate reporting, truthfulness and the right of reply. Part of these inaccuracies are a result of journalists rushing to be the first to break a story. ‘There’s high competition with social media, so journalists are running fast to be the first to break a story, as they want to scoop the competition. Every newspaper is now on social media. For example, in an incident where a man killed his girlfriend and then committed suicide, one paper rushed to publish the story online and even accompanied it with very graphic and disturbing photographs.’ In another example, a panellist recalled that ‘Confidente carried a story last year about people getting into a fight at work with their manager at a parastatal. The manager laid a charge of crimen injuria against the employees. On its online version, however, Confidente went ahead and reported that the employees had been arrested for attempted murder.’ ‘As journalists, we’re not doing our homework well enough.’ Some panellists, while conceding that journalists can and should do better in their reporting, also noted that journalists often struggle to access information 47 AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER NAMIBIA 2018