When seeing is no longer believing
THOMAS NKHOMA | Monday March 2, 2026 10:22
I read with keen interest a Facebook post in which the writer felt compelled to issue a disclaimer that a photograph circulating on social media, one allegedly depicting her with South Sudanese President Salva Kiir Mayardit, was not authentic. The image, she explained, had been generated using artificial intelligence (AI). More striking than the clarification itself was her appeal to the public, and to media practitioners in particular, to verify information from official sources and to refrain from sharing manipulated or unverified content. But what lingered long after reading the post was her sobering caution: “In 2026, visual content alone is no longer sufficient proof of authenticity.”
That statement marks a quiet but profound rupture with how societies have understood truth for more than a century. For generations, photographs and video footage carried a special authority. Words could be disputed, testimonies questioned, but an image was often treated as the final word.
Cameras were seen as neutral witnesses, incapable of bias, immune to imagination. To say “I saw it” was to close the argument.
That era has ended. We now live in a moment where images no longer document reality. They can manufacture it. AI has made it possible to create photographs and videos that are not only convincing but emotionally precise. Faces can be placed where they have never been, voices made to say what was never spoken, moments invented with unsettling realism. What once required state-level resources now sits comfortably on a laptop or smartphone.
This technological leap has quietly altered something deeper than media practice. It has unsettled our relationship with truth itself. Philosopher Hannah Arendt once warned that when societies lose the distinction between fact and fiction, they become vulnerable not merely to lies but to meaninglessness. In such a space, people stop asking what is true and begin asking only what is useful, entertaining or emotionally satisfying. That danger is no longer theoretical. For journalism, especially mainstream journalism, this is not just another challenge to adapt to. It is an existential test. In an environment saturated with citizen reporting, live streams, anonymous accounts and algorithm-driven outrage, professional journalism cannot compete on speed or spectacle. Nor should it try. Its survival now depends on something less glamorous but far more valuable: credibility.
Ironically, the very apology issued by one of the figures involved in the recent social media altercation speaks to this point. The moment public pressure mounted, the language shifted. Responsibility was acknowledged, regret expressed, and restraint promised. What had changed was not the facts but the audience. Once public trust was at stake, ethical considerations suddenly mattered. That is the power journalists have always understood, and why ethics were never meant to silence truth but to protect it. There is a growing argument, often made by self-styled citizen journalists, that journalistic ethics are a gag, a convenient shield behind which the media hides to avoid uncomfortable truths. Yet the opposite is closer to reality. Ethics exist because journalism does not serve itself. It serves the public. Without verification, fairness and accountability, reporting collapses into noise, and noise, however loud, cannot sustain trust. Trust, once lost, is almost impossible to recover.
This is where mainstream journalism must draw a firm line between itself and content creation. Anyone can post. Anyone can broadcast. But not everyone verifies, contextualises or accepts responsibility for harm caused. The journalist’s task in 2026 is no longer to simply show the world what happened but to explain why a piece of information should be believed at all.
That requires slowing down in a culture addicted to immediacy. It requires scepticism where audiences expect affirmation. It requires the uncomfortable habit of asking, again and again, not whether something looks real but whether it has been proven to be so.
The challenge does not rest with journalists alone. Citizens, including Batswana, are now unwilling participants in the information ecosystem. Every share, forward and retweet is an editorial decision, whether we like it or not. The old defence, “I was just sharing” - no longer holds in a world where misinformation spreads faster than correction.
Our cultural traditions offer guidance here. In Setswana society, claims of consequence were tested in communal spaces. Assertions were questioned, elders consulted, and motives examined. The digital age has removed those pauses, replacing them with instant judgment. Restoring that discipline, the habit of doubt, the patience of verification, may be our most important civic skill going forward.
The red flags of manipulated content are often subtle but familiar. Images that provoke immediate outrage, videos stripped of context, screenshots without traceable origins, claims attributed to unnamed sources, stories that confirm our biases too neatly. None of these alone proves deception, but together they form a pattern that demands caution. In 2026, scepticism is not cynicism. It is a responsibility.
Ultimately, this is not a debate about technology. It is a moral question about what kind of public sphere we want to inhabit. A society that treats every image as truth invites manipulation. A media environment that abandons standards in pursuit of relevance invites its own extinction.
The Facebook disclaimer that sparked this reflection was not merely an act of self-correction. It was a warning. Seeing is no longer believing. Belief now requires work, from journalists, institutions and citizens themselves. If we fail to do that work, we may find ourselves drowning in images yet starved of truth.
*Thomas Thos Nkhoma is MISA Botswana chairperson