Soyinka Knocks Channels for Incomplete Reporting

Yinka Olatunbosun

Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has condemned the Channels Television for inaccurate reporting, tasking the media in general on social responsibility.

He made this known in a press statement, where he noted that the report was selective in relaying his comments, blotting out his condemnation of the violence against non-indigenes of Lagos State.

He stated, “When remarks are taken out of context, spliced into a new one, provided a sensational headline, distortions become stamped on public receptivity, and the central intent of one’s remarks becomes completely unrecognisable.

“I denounced the menacing utterances of a vice-presidential aspirant as unbecoming. It was a gladiatorial challenge directed at the judiciary and, by implication, the rest of the democratic polity.”

Soyinka also described the incomplete report as “a betrayal of trust,” adding: “Throughout the interview, I continued to stress that the final word had yet to be pronounced on the elections. That omission renders the full message tendentious!”

He remarked that he was not partisan and would not condone any sort of misrepresentation, and therefore urged Channels to rerun the entire interview in order to reflect the actual conversation that was recorded.

“I hope Channels plans to provide the entire interview. After months of having to endure total fabrications of partisan utterances that are strange to me, even in their very choice of words,  it is most aggravating to have this, the first I have conceded in my authenticated person, casually subjected to selective editing and dissemination. Let us play by the rules of mutual obligation, or else abandon public discourse altogether.”