A journalist must worry about being correct, not politically correct

There’s a line in the Crosby, Stills and Nash song, Wasted On The Way, which always speaks to me about gullibility which, I am sad to say, is becoming the defining characteristic of this new Information Age.

When you were young, did you question all the answers?

When we were young, we probably did challenge everything, not to improve the world, but to bolster our own egos and to buck the system.

The young people – now old or dead – who challenged the status quo then, seem to me, at least, as some of the most strident defenders of what I can best describe as a politically correct view of the world.

The mere fact of you challenging one of the cherished pillars of that narrative marks you out as a fascist, a redneck, a sexist, or, the label de jour, a racist. So, to not stand out, you must do the following:

1) Laugh scathingly at everything Donald Trump does;

2) Believe: everything CNN, BBC and Sky News tell you about the world;

3) Believe: Vladimir Putin is an evil Russian Bear/imperialist who wants to conquer the world;

4) Believe: all migrants, wherever they are, are good, innocent people. They do not take jobs from local people and, in fact, build the economy by adding “diversity” and paying taxes;

5) Believe: Palestinians good, Israelis evil;

6) Believe: Robert Mugabe evil;

7) Believe: freedom of speech is something to die for, unless it is for fascists, rednecks, sexists or racists;

8) Believe: Nelson Mandela was a saint; Cyril is almost there;

9) Believe: Jacob Zuma and Robert Mugabe are, irredeemably, evil; and

10) Believe: calling Julius Malema a racist is a racist thing to do.

We had an intense and, sometimes, emotional debate in the newsroom the other day about a piece quoting the leader of the National Freedom Party – an offshoot of Mangosuthu’s Inkatha Freedom Party in KZN – as criticising foreigners and suggesting “refugees” be monitored.

The piece was inflammatory and could be viewed as borderline xenophobic. What worried was a knee-jerk “suppress it” reaction.

It’s not politically correct, especially in journalistic circles in this country, to allow that the people most concerned about the influx of illegals into this country might actually have a point.

Service delivery protests are, we believe, because the government is inefficient or corrupt. No one seems to stop to consider that if you’re planning to cater for a country of 52 million people, how do you cope with a 57 million reality?

The harsh reality is that less than 5% of people who cross our borders are genuine refugees, fleeing from persecution in their own countries. If they were, why do so many of them cross so many countries to come here, and not stop in the first place they would be “safe”?

We cannot simply shoot down everyone who raises the issue by launching the pre-emptive “xenophobia!” missiles. And, as journalists, we too often forget the golden rule of our trade: “You are not the target market!”

We’ve got to start questioning all the glib, PC answers.

Brendan Seery.

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