Question 5
Explain five reasons for the decline in the public trust of the media in your country.
Observation
This was another unpopular question and many of the candidates who answered it did not perform very well. They misinterpreted the question and gave wrong answers resulting in low marks. The candidates were expected to give the following points as their answers.
- Politicization of the media/Perceived partisanship of the media
- Marginalization of the opposition parties and members
- Unrepresentative of minority views/opinions
- Affiliation of the media with the ruling government
- Employment of media personalities by the government
- Inaccurate reportage of events and developments by the media
- Upsurge in the reportage of fake news
- High level of unprofessional conducts
- Perceived corruption of media practitioners/media houses
- Encouraging actions that are threats to national security
- Fuelling ethnic disharmony/tension
- Encouraging religious disaffection
- Escalation of tension/violence through bias reportage
- Writing of insightful reports and editorials
- Unbalanced reportage/lack of objectivity in reporting
- Promoting corrupt practices as against fighting corruption
- Publishing immoral materials that corrupt moral values
- Serving as platform for destructive criticismsÂ