Mmegi

Botswana’s media is not the enemy - It’s a mirror of our society

WPFD commemorations at Mass Media complex
WPFD commemorations at Mass Media complex

For the second time President Duma Boko has declared that “90% of Botswana’s media reports are false.” A statement like this especially coming from the highest office in the land, reverberates far beyond the walls where it was uttered.

It lands in every newsroom, echoes through every WhatsApp group where people share links and lingers in the mind of every citizen trying to make sense of the world through the headlines they read. Now, to be clear, the media in Botswana is not perfect. No media system in the world is. But, suggestions that nearly all of it is untrustworthy paint an entire profession with a careless brush.

It simplifies a complicated reality and worse, erodes public trust in one of the key institutions of any democracy, a free and independent press.

Back in 2008, when I was still an active journalist, I wrote an opinion piece asking, “Is Botswana ready for citizen journalism?” It was a time when blogs were blooming, mobile phones were becoming smarter and people were beginning to realise they did not need to wait for the 7pm news to know what was happening.


That piece was not just about technology. It was about trust, responsibility and the changing media landscape. More than a decade later, those same themes are still with us, only now the stakes are higher and the noise is louder.

When we talk about the media today, we need to go beyond soundbites and sweeping claims. We need to ask: What shapes the media environment in Botswana? Why do certain patterns such as sensational headlines or unverified reports, keep emerging? The answers are not simple but they are not mysterious either. Journalists in Botswana often work under intense pressure, in newsrooms with limited resources and in a market dominated by State advertising.

There is no Access to Information law to ensure timely, official data. Investigative reporting is costly, time-consuming and risky especially in a space where whistleblower protection is still fragile.

Add to this the growing influence of social media where algorithms reward speed and shock over depth and verification and you begin to see the terrain journalists must navigate.

It is not that the media wakes up each day determined to mislead. It is that the media operates within a socio-political and economic system that shapes its possibilities and limits. Media behaviour, in Botswana or anywhere else, does not emerge in a vacuum.

It reflects and sometimes distorts, the structures around it. If we accept this, then we must also accept that improving the media means addressing those structures not attacking the journalists themselves.

Encouragingly, the government has taken a step in the right direction by setting up a taskforce to assess the media environment and consider reforms to existing media laws. This move signals a recognition that the health of the press is directly linked to the health of our democracy.

If properly resourced and given the political will to act, this initiative could lay the groundwork for a more enabling media ecosystem, one where journalists are protected, information is accessible and the media can serve its watchdog role without fear or favour.

Over the years, despite challenges, Botswana’s media has shown courage. It has exposed corruption, questioned power, amplified the voices of communities often left unheard. It has made mistakes too - some of them costly - but the response to those mistakes should be more training, not more silencing.

Let us not reduce the debate to a matter of “good journalists versus bad journalists.” Let us instead look at the political economy of our media: who owns it, who funds it, who censors it and who consumes it.

Let us consider how media laws, advertising patterns and press freedom rankings all intersect to influence what stories are told and which ones never make it past the editor’s desk.

At the heart of this is the idea that media should serve the public good, a principle rooted in the Social Responsibility Theory of the media. It suggests that while the media must be free, it must also be accountable.

Nonetheless, accountability cannot be demanded in a vacuum. It must be supported with training, resources, access to information and a legal environment that encourages transparency rather than fear.

Too often, we treat the media as either a tool of propaganda or an adversary to be tamed. Conversely, the media is neither saint nor sinner.

It is a mirror. Sometimes it flatters, sometimes it distorts but most importantly, it reflects the society it comes from. If we want better journalism, we must nurture better conditions. That means treating the press not as an enemy of the State but as a partner in nation-building.

As I write this, I imagine a young reporter who spent three weeks chasing a local government corruption story only for it to be pulled at the last minute due to lack of legal backing. I see her devastated but undeterred.

“I will find a way,” she tells me. And that to me, is the essence of journalism in Botswana, not perfect but persistent.

Instead of condemning 90% of the media, we should be asking: how can we support the 100 percent that is trying, against the odds, to inform the public? How can we create a media landscape that encourages truth over clickbait, depth over drama? Because in the end, a society gets the media it supports and the media it deserves. *Thomas T. Nkhoma is MISA -Botswana national governing council chairperson

Editor's Comment
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