Don't be a contrarian unless your facts stack up
In the long history of some news outlets, there are bound to be some slip-ups from time to time. It is human nature to err. And in trying to find a new angle that will garner an audience away from the usual guff being produced is attractive, especially if you rely for an income upon it. But if you want to produce a contrary opinion, you'd better make sure that you can back up what you say. I'm not in the habit on picking up on news stories because their sins are legion but I have been infuriated by one on the killing of Cecil the Lion, not because I have anthropomorphised the late big cat but because of its shocking, slack-jawed content. Yesterday, Reuters entered the annals of shame with this article by Macdonald Dzirutwe. I will reprint it in full in bold below and then give my response.
As social media exploded with outrage this week at the killing of Cecil the lion, the untimely passing of the celebrated predator at the hands of an American dentist went largely unnoticed in the animal's native Zimbabwe.
"What lion?" acting information minister Prisca Mupfumira asked in response to a request for comment about Cecil, who was at that moment topping global news bulletins and generating reams of abuse for his killer on websites in the United States and Europe.
The government has still given no formal response, and on Thursday the papers that chose to run the latest twist in the Cecil saga tucked it away on inside pages.
One title had to rely on foreign news agency copy because it failed to send a reporter to the court appearance of two locals involved.
In contrast, the previous evening 200 people stood in protest outside the suburban Minneapolis dental practice of 55-year-old Walter Palmer, calling for him to be extradited to Zimbabwe to face charges of taking part in an illegal hunt.
Local police are also investigating death threats against Palmer, whose location is not known. Because many of the threats were online, police are having difficulty determining their origins and credibility.
Palmer, a lifelong big game hunter, has admitted killing Cecil with a bow and arrow on July 1 near Zimbabwe's Hwange national park, but said he had hired professional local guides with the required hunting permits and believed the hunt was legal.
For most people in the southern African nation, where unemployment tops 80 percent and the economy continues to feel the after-effects of billion percent hyperinflation a decade ago, the uproar had all the hallmarks of a 'First World Problem'.
"Are you saying that all this noise is about a dead lion? Lions are killed all the time in this country," said Tryphina Kaseke, a used-clothes hawker on the streets of Harare. "What is so special about this one?"
As with many countries in Africa, in Zimbabwe big wild animals such as lions, elephants or hippos are seen either as a potential meal, or a threat to people and property that needs to be controlled or killed.
The world of Palmer, who paid $50,000 to kill 13-year-old Cecil, is a very different one from that inhabited by millions of rural Africans who are more than occasionally victims of wild animal attacks.
According to CrocBITE, a database, from January 2008 to October 2013, there were more than 460 recorded attacks by Nile crocodiles, most of them fatal. That tally is almost certainly a massive underrepresentation.
"Why are the Americans more concerned than us?" said Joseph Mabuwa, a 33-year-old father-of-two cleaning his car in the center of the capital. "We never hear them speak out when villagers are killed by lions and elephants in Hwange."
(Additional reporting by Ed Stoddard in Johannesburg; Editing by Ed Cropley and Giles Elgood)
"What lion?" acting information minister Prisca Mupfumira asked in response to a request for comment about Cecil, who was at that moment topping global news bulletins and generating reams of abuse for his killer on websites in the United States and Europe.
The government has still given no formal response, and on Thursday the papers that chose to run the latest twist in the Cecil saga tucked it away on inside pages.
One title had to rely on foreign news agency copy because it failed to send a reporter to the court appearance of two locals involved.
In contrast, the previous evening 200 people stood in protest outside the suburban Minneapolis dental practice of 55-year-old Walter Palmer, calling for him to be extradited to Zimbabwe to face charges of taking part in an illegal hunt.
Local police are also investigating death threats against Palmer, whose location is not known. Because many of the threats were online, police are having difficulty determining their origins and credibility.
Palmer, a lifelong big game hunter, has admitted killing Cecil with a bow and arrow on July 1 near Zimbabwe's Hwange national park, but said he had hired professional local guides with the required hunting permits and believed the hunt was legal.
For most people in the southern African nation, where unemployment tops 80 percent and the economy continues to feel the after-effects of billion percent hyperinflation a decade ago, the uproar had all the hallmarks of a 'First World Problem'.
"Are you saying that all this noise is about a dead lion? Lions are killed all the time in this country," said Tryphina Kaseke, a used-clothes hawker on the streets of Harare. "What is so special about this one?"
As with many countries in Africa, in Zimbabwe big wild animals such as lions, elephants or hippos are seen either as a potential meal, or a threat to people and property that needs to be controlled or killed.
The world of Palmer, who paid $50,000 to kill 13-year-old Cecil, is a very different one from that inhabited by millions of rural Africans who are more than occasionally victims of wild animal attacks.
According to CrocBITE, a database, from January 2008 to October 2013, there were more than 460 recorded attacks by Nile crocodiles, most of them fatal. That tally is almost certainly a massive underrepresentation.
"Why are the Americans more concerned than us?" said Joseph Mabuwa, a 33-year-old father-of-two cleaning his car in the center of the capital. "We never hear them speak out when villagers are killed by lions and elephants in Hwange."
(Additional reporting by Ed Stoddard in Johannesburg; Editing by Ed Cropley and Giles Elgood)
Is this article for real? It wasn't Zimbabweans saying 'what lion' - it was a member of the cosseted elite. The acting information minister who said 'what lion' is part of the same incompetent, ignorant governmental clique that caused the billion per cent hyperinflation and reduced Zimbabwe from a prosperous state to penury. And the government has acted, requesting the extradition of the slayer of Cecil, the American dentist, Walter Palmer.
Cecil the Lion was worth millions of (US) dollars and vital employment to its tourist industry, he was the safari's star attraction - vital foreign currency now denied to Zimbabwe's people; first world problems, huh? Even the term 'first world' is out-of-date - the terms 'developing' and 'developed' countries are less smug and prejudicial.
Why did Reuters interview people whose livelihood does not depend on safari income - because of the laziness of it's reporter(s) on the ground; couldn't be bothered to leave the capital Harare or Jo'burg. As for newspapers in developing countries, sometimes it cheaper to purloin foreign copy (indeed, nab it as free) rather than pay someone to go to court or wherever.
Cecil was also being monitored for scientific research and is a countless loss to such studies. Palmer was part of a hunt that knowingly lured Cecil off the national park (where lions do not form a meal to people) - even if he was ignorant then, he was part of the (failed) attempt to destroy Cecil's tracking collar, another crime under Zimbabwean law.
Moreover, what do crocodiles have to do with this? Why mention their statistics? It is a complete irrelevance to lions living in national parks, not to mention the broader story. There has been only one reported lion attack inside Hwange national park, against a hunter (who escaped unscathed) searching for lions to kill in revenge for the death of livestock, who disturbed a lioness guarding her cubs. A schoolboy was killed by a lion but that was outside the enclosed perimeter of Hwange and the rogue lion was despatched legally by park rangers (as would one a dog with a taste for human blood). Cecil was reportedly docile around humans. The point is not about the death of a lion; it is about what Cecil represented - his worth financially, scientifically and to biodiversity (his progeny will also probably now be killed by a rival), his friendliness and the barbaric and criminal way his life was ended by people who get their kicks out of killing animals. In trying to go against the flow, Reuters ends up looking a complete arse by publishing this tripe!
posted by Alex Plumb @ 10:37 pm
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