Somali media and impartiality

Spate of Journalism outlets had been spawned in Somali after the collapse of the former central government of Somalia. Radio stations, publishing houses that produce dozens of copies of Journals as well as Somali written websites had been launched to fill the vacuum left by the centralized media system that existed in Somalia during Mohamed Siyad’s tenure -albeit I could hardly juxtapose Somalia media under siyaad Bare’s era to the post civil war period because of the socio-political environment that prevailed in Somalia during these two periods.

If media under siyad Bare’s rule is characterized by centralized media remote controlled by the ministry of information to disseminate siyaad Bare’s propaganda, the post civil war media evolved from a plenty of clan affiliated A4 seized newspapers and duo of radio stations controlled by General Aidid And Ali mahdi to a variety of Fm radio stations sponsored by war lords, until the inception of what is dubbed “independent radio stations era” but partially, biasness and lack of journalism ethics prevailed, predetermined censorship was replaced by negative self censorship, I coined “negative self censorship” because predetermined censorship is when government Authorities or warlords ad or disqualify parts of the media contents regardless of its type before its published, but what is currently known to independent press became a clan dominated entities were the employees especially who hold decision making posts belong to a one clan and consequently influence the contents of the news and programmes of the media institution in favour of their clan by conducting self censorship with out direct instructions from the clan leader.

For instance; two of the major FM stations in Mogadishu might broadcast on their prime news “80 percent of Mogadishu inhabitants that we collected their opinions are against the Djibouti peace process because it will perpetuate the dreadful and vicious Ethipian occupation”, they release the voices of preselected and grudging individuals who appose the peace process. Firstly, the sample does not represent the population that is to say few individuals who reside in a particular locality in Mogadishu can not represent the whole dwellers of Mogdisho. Secondly; the motive behind this biased reporting is to sabotage the peace process in Djibouti that could end the human suffering in Mogadishu and its vicinity in the gaze of the sponsors of these radio stations.

Such unprofessional act occurs daily in the arena of the de facto Somali media but the situation went from bad to worst after the emergence of Somali published websites who carry demeaning contents that target both individuals and business institutions, these villain personalities who call them selves journalists publish false propaganda against money transfer companies to damage their good will, they publish “this company is owned by Al-Qaida linked business man or this company financed or was behind the killing of a well know local Politician” to sway the customers from the company under question and extort money form them in exchange for halting these blatant propaganda. I quoted from a whistleblower with in the coordinators of one of these websites that they extorted several hundred US dollars from one of Somali owned money transfer companies in a bid to cease the false news they write about the activates of the company. They propagate this phony news after their quest to get add contract from the company has been turned down or turn deaf eared and they resorted to this illegal way similar to the conduct of those who man the road blocks scattered many parts of Somali that generate millions of US dollar.

If your visit one of these websites you will see how unscrupulous and unsavory they are, but the affect of their nasty actions is mitigated by the knowledge and awareness that most of the visitors of these websites have about such publishers, so they read their rag tags just to have fun but regrettably they (publishers) spoil the trustworthiness of Somali media