To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. — Proverbs 21:3
And judgment is turned away backward, and justice stands afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. — Isaiah 59:14
The media in the United States and the judicial system are all at it again, and their actions should cause concern to all peoples from both sides of the Atlantic. In the US, there is a Presidential campaign, complicated with impeachment proceedings of the sitting President, Donald Trump; while in Malawi the aftermath of the May 21 elections, the Constitution Court has asked Malawians to wait for its decision following taking four months in hearing testimonies from the two sides.
The matter of the US media, it is again subjected the American media to a lopsided version of the news, that is the twenty-four hours seven days a week concentration of focus on one individual, namely President Donald Trump. This is done at the detriment of other candidates that are in primaries to compete against Trump. For example, take any news media, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ABC, NBC, CBS, and you can be certain to get only various angles of the Trump impeachment process, compounded by continuing eyebrow-raising actions of the President and presumptive leader of the world.
This is from morning to night and throughout the night.
There is a cliché that states that even bad news is good news. This was true for Trump in 2016; it continues to work for him as almost every day since taking the office of US President, he has done things that have plied all media houses to throw magnifying glasses to his leadership style. Even entertainment media and late-night comedies have all gone Trump-prone.
In the process, the media has eclipsed the existence of other newsmakers such as the 20 Democratic candidates that are vying to be the nominee to represent the Democratic Party against President Trump.
This is a totally unfair overexposure of Trump, whereby he is getting free exposure, while the Democratic Party candidates pay for adverts in the media. It is the replica of the 2016 elections where the media ignored Hilary Clinton, as the media houses flocked to give coverage to the candidate Trump. Added to this Trump media overload and over-subscription, was the overload of fake news about Clinton, lodged by Russia.
If one could be a sage and offer the media some words of advice, could the media adopt a new strategy: let the media houses devote 15 minutes to Trump news, devote the remaining time to the Democrats that are contesting in the 2020 elections. Let the coverage of news be fair to all newsmakers. The way the media is treating President Trump is as if he is the only candidate, even if the exposure is of his potential impeachment.
Turning to the Malawi election case, where the Malawi Congress Party under Dr. Lazarus Chakwera, in collaboration with the United Transformation Movement under former Vice President Dr. Saulos Chilima, are challenging the results of the May 21, 2019 elections, the panel of judges, led by Justice Healey Potani have thrown the discus stretching the end of the court proceedings far and wide: all the way to December 6, 2019. While it is acceptable that the justices’ panel, that includes Redson Kapindi, Ivy Kamanga, Mike Tembo and Dingiswayo Madise, has a myriad of evidence to maul over, however the close to two months stretch, during which Malawians are waiting in abeyance. This is a travesty, pretense, sham of justice.
As Malawians will be in this forced period of disuse, the Democratic Progressive Party under President Mutharika, is not in any suspended mode. In fact, the DPP has continued to rule unaffected by the proceedings of the case. Under DPP rule, ordinary Malawians that are not DPP, are being targeted, harassed and intimidated; while police behave politically by either being idle or victimizing the masses; sadly, some police have been attacked by members of the demonstrators.
The delayed ruling of the court case is a delay of justice. Over the weekend, one of the DPP officials, Nankhumwa during a presidential rally, turned religious, quoted scripture (2 Chronicle 7:14), and then broke out into song. This was an impressive ploy but failed to meet the integrity mark; invoking the scripture has not come with the critical element of repent.
To the Malawi Constitutional panel of justices, Malawians are waiting on you; please do not let them down; the court’s delay is unfairly throwing Malawians into the ash-heap of uncertainty.
To the US media, the blackout on the other side of the presidential campaign is unfairly throwing the uneven advantage to one candidate. Such media over-coverage in 2016, even with bad press, secured the opposite of the intent of the bad press.Let democracy reign!
