Lack Of Humility To Admit A Mistake

It would have been more honourable for Daily Trust to admit that, like any human institution, it can make mistakes instead of seeking to double down on its professional gaffe.

What the newspaper did with its Front Page position on the Samoa Agreement saga was nothing but a babble of thoughtless excuses and insufferable arrogance.

Daily Trust claimed that the offensive story it published on Samoa Agreement was as its Editors “understood it.”

We can only imagine the chaos and confusion that will happen in a society like ours if 200million plus Nigerians have to give every written word and agreement their own interpretations. We will have a tower of babel and anarchy to contend with.

The job of Daily Trust’s editors is to report accurately about events and developments, not to turn their own interpretation of events into news. It is Journalism 101 that you don’t editorialise news reporting.

A news organization like Daily Trust should never aggregate opinions and then serve them as facts to the unsuspecting public, knowing that such is capable of creating crisis in the country.

That’s why the maxim- comments are free and facts sacred- is so popular in journalism.

Newspapers make mistakes and do make amends by admitting the errors and apologising. It takes nothing away from the newspaper, but demonstrates great humility on its part. This is the path of honour that we expect Daily Trust to take!

Temitope Ajayi.