ARE LOCAL PAPERS PROMOTING MORAL DECADENCE OR THEY MOVING WITH THE TRENDS OF TIME?
The newspaper like other media sources are regarded as gate keepers or mediums that help set trends and pave way to the future. For the purpose of this article keep this statement in mind.
For year’s people have been either picking up newspapers at their door step, or they receive their newspaper at work, for most people they stop at corners at newspaper stands were they buy their newspapers. It’s like a culture or tradition were the first instinct of a human being is to be updated on the current news andaffairs of the day.
Current news involves; business news, finance news, advertisements, entertainment newsand job vacancies. Even though now we speak of new media the trend of buying newspapers has not disappeared whetheryou get thenews as a hard copy or soft copy, it is clear that the newspaper is part of our daily life’s.
This brings me topausequestion, what are the ethics and principlesof journalism and do our current local newspapers uphold these principles? According to journalism.org“the central purpose of journalism is to provide citizens with accurate and reliable information …” “this encompasses myriad roles helping define community creating common language and common knowledge, identifying a community goals heroes and villains and pushing people beyond complacency.”
In recent years in Zimbabwe there are new newspapers that have emerged that produce content which leaves one questioning the influence these papers are having in setting and taking part in the charges of our culture. Our culture and livelihood as a country has recently be influenced by so many media sources, to what I would like to call moral degradation. Whether as a nation we are paying attention or not the content of these new papers is such a good example of bad influence on our culture and unfortunately the future generation.These papers are feeding our minds on the idea of gossip like the so called tabloids from the westerncountries.
A newspaper is a family medium which should be enjoyed by everyone, yet these new newspapers produce content that is explicit and of loose moral value. Recently they featured a story on the front page with a picture of a lady dressed in explicit manner who licked a sex tape, is this what we now call current affair? What message does this send to the youth and the generation to come?Has the newspapers lost its principles?Or should we say the citizens have lost their moral beliefs, for not seeing the effects of such content. For many years the statement sex sales has been said and used as an excuse to sale services and products but as a country have we gotten to the point that in our newspapers the main headlines sound like some story you hear women gossip about in the streets and men joking about in the beer wholes. Are we leaving a legacy for our children that we can be proud of or we just now want to sale newspapers, to the point that we do not censor the stories that are published in the newspapers anymore?
Cannot help but remember the days when children were considered and warnings were given that content may not be suitable for children and it was taboo to talk about sex and show naked pictures in the newspapers. Yetnowadays explicit stories are put on the front page as leading stories, then as a nation we want to cry that the new generation has gone wild, when the gate keeper of our nation do not censor information that we read do not bother protect our children from immoral characters and stories.
I pause a question are local papers promoting moral decadence or they moving with the trends of time?
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Article by Carol Marufu
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