Lowering The Namibian’s Standards
IT IS with great disappointment that I write this letter. As a Namibian based overseas, I look to the few sources of respectable online news about my homeland that I can find, The Namibian’s website being one that I can always turn to to find the thorough, well-written and trustworthy news I have come to expect. However, this week I had the misfortune of finding an article entitled “Chasing The Dots ... Thick As A Bric (+s)?” by a Chris Smith dated 03 April 2013, where it seems all journalistic standards (both in terms of content and grammar) have been abandoned in place of hysterical, conspiratorial malarkey.
Do not get me wrong, as I do find the issues mentioned – concentration of corporate power, corruption etc – important. However, the reckless nature with which Smith makes bold claims, referring to unreferenced (and hence unverifiable) statistics about vague concepts which the author leaves undefined means that instead of reading a well reasoned argument, the reader is left trying to comprehend the mass of unrelated information and causal links. The author then goes on to state a list of “events” which are, according to him, a direct result of this “game-playing”, without a single word of evidence to back up his claims. Sure, we have suspicions, but rambling on about them without so much as an anecdotal reference makes this article more along the lines of a conspiracy theory, than journalism.
Further, Smith’s criticism of BRICS as a “plaything” of global players is erroneous, and contradictory to his previous message with respect to “sovereigns”. Might I also mention that China, for one, would not really be considered a “plaything” by any standards. Also in what seems to be a recurring theme, the statistic with respect to the “amount” of corruption these countries represent is unverified and undefined.
I will always remain a reader of The Namibian, however with articles like this, I fear the legitimacy of your newspaper may be questioned. Perhaps this was a once off, and soon we will have the return of the standards that have been upheld for so many years.
Rashid Muhamedrahimov
Oxford, UK