Comments on: Explosion In Nairobi : Follow-up

By: MediaChannel.org

MediaChannel.org — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 16:08:49 +0000

[...] His second post was the one that led to an enlightening debate about the role of citizen media, particularly blogs in breaking news, especially when there isn’t enough information to draw conclusions. He wrote: Today has just illustrated the double edged nature of pervasive communication like blogs, email and text messaging. There is no doubt that these platforms are powerful tools for communicating information. There is also no doubt that they are powerful tools for spreading disinformation. The rumours and innuendo that have gotten to me have left me speechless. Some of the accounts have received indicate hundreds dead and the whole block leveled. Blame has been laid at the doors of Al Qaeda, clumsily detonated grenades, Mungiki, time bombs, electronically detonated bombs and mobile phone detonated bombs. [...]

By: Global Voices Online » Kenya: Debating the double-edged nature of citizen media

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 18:18:35 +0000

By: Ni2

Ni2 — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 16:36:18 +0000

Oh yeah and another thing.

As I did not get any such sms or email about explosions would that mean? :-)

By: Ni2

Ni2 — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 16:24:09 +0000

Have you ever played “broken Telephone?”

By: aegeus

aegeus — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 19:37:02 +0000

This was the first place i saw that this had happened. I was home sick so i was not aware that there had been an explosion earlier in the day. It is then that i tuned into the local stations and saw the reports “live”. Thanks M for educating blogren, some were so alarmist that i would not have ventured into town later in the day! It is a really powerful medium and before they publish hearsay at least have the due diligence to verify them as fact beforehand.

By: Dshy

Dshy — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 16:06:49 +0000

Hi M,

In answer to your question about not being able to comprehend what it is like to live in Israel or Iraq, you are right, I don’t, but then again that’s a very extreme case. Closer to home, I was in London when the July bomb went off, so I can categorically state that I know what it means to start reciting last prayers at the sight of a lone item in the underground tube station. In addition, I travel to London a lot, sometimes out of choice (shopping etc) and sometimes for work. I use all the major underground connections (The choice target of terrorists, because of the capacity to inflict damage on a very large scale in one go. About 150,000 passengers travel through the underground in a day), so I have an idea of it means to live in fear and uncertainty.

To fully appreciate the current attitude of Londoners sitting next to a potential suicide bomber, let me tell you a short story. My sister and her Muslim friend were waiting for a train. Said veiled friend was carrying a backpack. At one point, she got so paranoid from the suspicious and hostile looks being sent her way, she pleaded with my sister to stand closer so people would not think she was a suicide bomber, now given that my sister looks Somalian, you can see the fallacy in this logic, but logic plays in such a situation, which brings me to the point I was making in my previous comment about people reacting instinctively to a given situation, however irrational that reaction may be.

We all have different ways of approaching a crisis, what is certain is that in this instance, we all share the same goal i.e. to get to the bottom of this, sure we might disagree on a few issues but what remains static is we are all Kenyans, ultimately, it affects all of us equally. Therefore, what I am asking for is a bit of tolerance, rather than little patience.

Ps – M, This is a polite discussion and nothing more, (God knows my malovings for you is only surpassed by my wendo for blackforest cake from Java) I am fortunate to know that you are stand up guy, whose motives I have never had to question, thus the (disjointed) effort to try and persuade you to view this through a different lens.

:D My dear, no one enjoys a spirited discussion more than me. I appreciate all you’re saying. In fact you’re even helping me make my point. In a crisis such as what happened yesterday, the question arises: is creating an atmosphere of panic and uncertainty for others an acceptable way of dealing with the situation?

By: egm

egm — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:30:18 +0000

Quoting from Spiderman, "With great power comes great responsibility". The power of the blog medium to give a voice to the person on the street to report and comment on things should be accompanied by the responsibility of due dilligence. There is freedom to write anything and everything. That, however, does not necessarily mean that anything and everything being written will result in the improvement of the reader.

By: Ms K

Ms K — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:11:24 +0000

I meant the People newspaper.

Oh, and I was going to say, you don’t find corrections/clarifications every day bana! But they do make a very strong case for your due diligence point. When we are wrong, we must admit we are wrong.

Touche my dear touche! :D {swallowing own words}

By: Ms K

Ms K — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:08:25 +0000

"Professional news reporters” is an interesting term to apply to the Kenyan media, which has itself confessed that its rank and file is populated with many people that are not journalists. Having “The Standard” or “The Daily Nation” embossed on a lapel badge does not automatically make you an authority, or absolve you from the responsibility of due diligence. Papers have been known to be wrong. Pick any paper and within the first ten pages you can be assured you will find an ‘apology’ or a ‘clarification’." We risk throwing out the baby etc etc. Yes there are lots of incompetent reporters but there are just a many good ones.

Reading it again, that didn't sound the way I intended. What I wanted to say is that the fact that it was reported by a journalist does not mean that journalists are in any position to conclude that it was a suicide bomber and go ahead to press. Mistakes can and have been made. Especialy when the people writing the stories are not actually trained journalsits

I think the most important point you make (for me!) is about "responsibility of due diligence". You're right, we are all human, we make mistakes. If we are all that much more careful, the mistakes will definitely become less. But we are all each others eyes. When we see the mistakes, we should correct each other, and those corrected must take time to correct their mistake. But we must also be careful not to castigate those who make mistakes too harshly. We are all learning my friend, we are all learning.

Granted, and I agree totally with you. What I was trying to say is that as much as possible we should try and avoid mistakes in the first place. Some mistakes are not so easy to undo

And on that note, I am sending a petition to the people. Printing that photo of a blast victim on todays (12 June) paper was the height of bad taste, orresponsibility and downright stupidity.

Good Lord! Washindwe pepo!!! That paper precisely makes my point. If you took such a paper to ocha and the people there read the horrifying sensationalism ... If it turned out it was a gas explosion after all, how easy would it be to convince people that Nairobi is not Tel Aviv after all?

By: Dshy

Dshy — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 11:58:19 +0000

My only contention is with the media who tend to report along the lines of ‘wind them up-watch them go i.e. they will spout whatever happens to be the current government line, the same government which in times of crisis, tends to put the best face on things, even if that face distorts reality. So you can see the obvious pitfall in relying on the latter as a reliable source of information.

Other than that, I fully agree with you, it was reckless of people to postulate opinions as facts. Regarding doing ourselves a great disservice, I am of the humble opinion that panicking is human nature, no matter how plausible or utterly insane the reason, its just how our society works. With time, maybe we will see the folly of our knee jerk reaction, but I will still maintain that while it may have come across as inexcusable, it was still understandable. Unacceptable, but given the circumstances and past events (previous bombing) justifiable.

Your thoughts?

Understandable? I’m not too sure about that. Of all things to assume why a suicide bomber? I don’t think we can even begin to comprehend life under the cloud of a suicide bomber. No amount of CNN can quite paint the picture of a life where the man next to you in the bus looking around may be planning to kill you. Life looking at every laptop bag, satchel, attache case and brief case with suspicion. Life where you are uneasy to be in a crowd. I don’t think we have the slightest comprehension of what it is like to live in Israel or Iraq for instance