It sickens me!

Media: Always portraying the worst!

It always and still pains the way the media will always publish the worst side of something. I know the news stories are probably selected according to news values but that does not mean there is only bad to tell about a certain place all the time. This, I see as an indoctrination of the public’s mind.

I noticed how media can programme and manipulate one into thinking that a situation in a country is really the way they put it. I always thought that people from Zimbabwe were poor and that they couldn’t speak English properly. I have never been to Zim and yet I had such perceptions about the country and its people. Where did the spark of my views hail from? The constant reports on how people suffer from hunger and the extreme violence that goes on in that country. Why don’t we ever hear of their intelligence? Why don’t we ever see the infrastructure because surely there are immaculate buildings and elegant recreational facilities? As a result I was totally surprised when I learned that Zimbabweans here at Rhodes have enough. Some even have things that I know I could never have at this age, like a car for example.

Take how people from the West look at Africa, look at what views they have about Africa; look at how their minds are imposed to ideas of the situation of the Motherland. Most of them have never been to Africa but the ideas they have about Africa spells it all out. A friend of mine did her lower grades in England and she says she has never seen such ignorant people in her life. They asked her how she got there, hallo…never heard of flying before? They asked what she flew in, as if a swallow or an eagle took her to England. Asked her how constantly she sees Nelson Mandela. Chances of meeting Tata Mandela are as slim in South Africa as they would be in Madagascar.

I remember when Chris Brown came to South Africa, the places he went to in Johannesburg and how amazed he was at how beautiful the shopping malls in Joburg were. There is an awesome dance group on Jozi and those guys and girls are just of-the-hook. They danced for Chris Brown and the moves they did were just as much hip as CB’s are. He was so fascinate that he said he didn’t think South Africans can dance like they do back in the States. I was really put off, not by what Chris Brown said but by how the media, entertainment in this case do not show the talent that S.A. has. There are so many people that can dance in this country but they are not given adequate publicity.

Western civilians see Africa as this poverty-stricken country… yes people suffer from hunger, people suffer from diseases, but not all Africans are HIV positive, not all African children are beggars.There are just as much street beggars in the western countries; people get raped especially by their family members. Why hasn’t that made a big deal? Why that hasn’t been constantly in papers? Domestic violence has taken its tall in America, and who ever cared to make a big deal about that?
The media portrays Africa as this place with useless people who can’t even make endeavours to save their lives, which is not true! This has been happening for a long time if not forever and I feel that the media is not only informing people but misinforming them as well. We have the idea that everything that is in the media is true and that leave us narrow-minded. I think it’s about time the media did their job and that includes not misinforming people in order to make profit for their own benefit. Now South Africa is being referred to as this crime hole where you don’t stand a chance of coming out if you happen to get in it. I mean there is crime everywhere. If this is the agenda of the media, then I must surely be mistaken.