Opinion
The BBC living up to its poor journalistic standards
The latest
BBC article on alleged enforced disappearances in Rwanda, published on
August 30,2022, is evidence of the inability of this media outlet to depart
from its self-destructive trajectory as far as its credibility is concerned. To
put it mildly, the BBC professionalism is appalling and examples are many.
Consider
BBC sources. One is Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, a convicted criminal whose
judicial record is not mentioned at all in the article. It is as if the BBC
doesn’t want its readers to know who Ms Ingabire is; this would greatly undermine
her credibility and by extension, the BBC’s. The BBC simply mentions that her
party is not legally recognized and that she is not allowed to leave country.
No mention is made of the fact that Ms Ingabire was granted presidential pardon
(with conditions) having served only 8 years of her 15 year prison sentence,
after she was found guilty of collaboration with the FDLR as well as committing
the crime of genocide denial. Yet, the BBC’s deliberate omission deprives its
readers of the legal justification behind Ms Ingabire’s inability to leave the
country and to register a political party.
BBC’s
readers know that Rwanda is not the only country where criminals serving their
sentence outside of prison are not allowed to perform political activities or
to leave the jurisdiction where the sentence was pronounced. In fact, any
normal society enforces such prevention tools to keep the criminals in check
and ensure the safety of its members. However, since the BBC is determined to
portray Rwanda as an abnormal society, these details are simply shoved under
the rug.
If
necessary, witnesses are made up. Indeed, the BBC’s second source is anonymous.
This would be okay if the BBC had not had a track record of failing to do basic
fact-checks to assert the credibility of its reporting. These repeated failures
should prevent any reasonable person from granting the BBC the benefit of the
doubt. An anonymous source cannot be considered a credible source to support
claims as serious as those of enforced disappearances leveled against a
government.
Even
more disturbing is the unfounded assumption that those who disappear are
victims of the government’s repression simply because they are members of
political parties, whether legally recognized or otherwise. By failing to
mention the criminal activities of Ms Ingabire, the BBC sets the ground for
this assumption when a credible explanation of their disappearance could be
that they simply chose to flee the country rather than face justice. There are
many instances where alleged victims of enforced disappearances reappeared in
neighboring countries where they continued their subversive activities.
Most
importantly, it should appear suspect that the BBC takes the allegations
leveled against the government of Rwanda at face value while omitting the facts
- proven in courts to be beyond any reasonable doubt - which led to the
conviction of the BBC’s unreliable “source”, Ms Ingabire.
It
is no secret that the BBC has been criticized time and again for its lack of
professionalism. Recently, during the press conference that concluded the CHOGM
2022 held in Kigali, the Commonwealth Secretary-General, Patricia Scotland, and
President Kagame faulted the BBC for its repeated failures to perform due
diligence and to do basic fact-checks in their reporting. However, their
criticism seems to have fallen on deaf ears.
As
the saying goes, old habits die hard. The sclerosis is too widespread for one
to expect the BBC’s recovery.
Source:
www.newtimes.co.rw