Editorial Recklessness: A Case of Coindesk’s Misrepresentation of a Nation
I have seen those who attempt to rewrite history or should I say those who manufacture their own version of the past and then sell it to those who take no extra efforts at verifying how true this information can be. A horror that never ceases to amaze me.
We are being barraged just at the slightest instance of wanting to pay attention to anything happening in our world. Everyone seems to be in a frantic race where it is trendy to be the first and not the honest. It has always boiled down to the enterprise, the media agencies, the “killer app” by tech and social media companies etc all with the core intent of capturing and retaining man’s attention, a vast mine never able to finish being tapped for their gains whether individual or corporate.
As Denzel Washington aptly puts it,
“if you don’t read the newspaper you’re uninformed, if you do read it, you’re misinformed… What is the long term effect of too much information? One of the effects is the need to be first and not to be true anymore. …. So what’s the responsibility you (the media and press) all have? To tell the truth, not just to be first. We live in a society where it says first. Who cares? Get it out there! We don’t care who it hurts. We don’t care who it destroys, we don’t care if it’s true. Just say it! Sell it! Anything you practise you’ll get good at, including BS!”
For how long should this continue?
With my usual habit of reading through several articles and news, I was awestruck when I came across an interesting piece. Without credible sources and references to back their unfounded claims Coindesk puts out there that “most” Nigerians earns less than $500 an equivalent of N180,000 in naira per annum, dragging a nation of about 200 million people’s reputation into mud and thereby discrediting her amongst the league of nations, perhaps with the aim of further destroying relationships her citizens has already forged all around the globe.
How has it done so? In one of its recent publications titled “Crypto Bounty is becoming a High-Tech Way out of Poverty”. For the benefit of those who might not really know Coindesk so well, get a quick 2 minutes glimpse of the about us of Coindesk
Having gone through that, it’s quite clear their position as an authority in the space comes without questioning which must however be put to the test for one of their flagrant and demeaning way of misrepresenting a whole nation, Nigeria to be precise. Why? Perhaps to keep selling what si nothing other than “Fake News” to the unsuspecting readers and the general public.
In this article, Coindesk blatantly categorized the average Nigerian to earn less than $500 per annum. With flagrant and unbridled unprofessionalism, the editor of that article states:
“This year alone he’s made more than $1,000 by collecting bounties. And again, while that might sound like a pittance, it’s actually double what most Nigerians make in a year.”
I find this not only a gross misrepresentation of a whole country but also the most brazen height of “editorial recklessness”. Where on earth did Coindesk get its facts and numbers from? The average Nigerian even though has declined in standard of living over the course of the years still earns more than the $500/annum Coindesk boasts of in its publication.
Statistics shows that weighted average of the earnings of the average Nigerian is $1,378.33 per annum at exchange rate pegged at N360 per dollar. Even a worse case scenario where an average Nigerian under the obsolete “Minimum Wage” arrangement earns an average of $600 per annum which by the way has been reviewed upward and a new benchmark approved by the government of Nigeria still renders the numbers put forward by Coindesk false.
What might come to mind is the number of people who are within the minimum wage salary scale in Nigeria, Nigeria’s labour force which stands at 69.5 million as at Q4 of 2016 approximately 36.6% of its total population. Backdating to the time the falsely written article by Coindesk was released, let’s say for a moment Coindesk focused its searchlight on the workforce of the nation targeting mainly those who earn the now defunct minimum wage which amounted to $600 per annum, that would be 4.3% which was gotten from the 1.5 million workers under federal government payroll and 1.5 million workers under state and local government payroll of the 70 million working population of the country.
Irrespective of how near the figures Coindesk puts forward might be to reality, the ethics of thorough and professional journalism demands you put only the verifiable facts out there for the teeming public’s consumption and not spurious and misleading information Coindesk seems to be decorating itself with as laurels, mindlessly depicting itself as the paragon of sound journalistic reporting.
Should we absolve a clear case of misrepresentation of the largest single black market in the world? A country brimming with untold potentials amidst the many ills that plague it clearly inching its’ way to becoming the hotbed of global investments within the next 5 years, undoubtedly one of the most sought after countries in Africa in terms of foreign investment second only to South Africa and gearing to overtake it with so much haste, I think not
As the saying goes,
“you don’t give a dog a bad name just with the intent of hanging it”,
the cynical intention it might have haboured in mind against Nigeria while writing, the editor of the article clearly relegated objectivity, a crucial ingredient in the ancient long journalism practice while Coindesk makes proud to release it as another masterpiece of its reportage.
Whichever lens the Coindesk team sees Nigeria from clearly exaggerating figures to obscure any good out of the Nigerian nation, we should however note that the phenomenon called “Fake News” is so real and should never be condoned within any professional quarters.
And just like Denzel boldly stated
“…whatsoever you practice you become good at including BS” ,
We can clearly see that even the icons of squeaky clean professional paragons can be most at times horribly misleading and terribly so.
Contributor: Marvelous Akpere.
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