Nick Parker of The Sun in Burma
First, let me say, that there is not one false fact within the piece, however there is a combination of stories that when woven together create a false impression of the local Maasai and their involvement of the poisoning of lions here in the Mara Triangle.A few weeks back I was listening to a BBC World Service debate when a press officer chirped up with a story about a newspaperman who had approached his charity to help him get into Burma. The PR man declined when he heard the object of the trip was for the paper to deliver water to thirsty kids. Too much of a stunt, he thought. Anyway, you don't have to look too hard to see who he was talking about. But it's the internet where it happens most frequently. My first experience of this was more personal. A couple of years ago I emailed a press officer a list of rather involved questions about the nomadic herders who live in Kenya's remote north-east and were suffering yet another cataclysmic drought. I was wondering whether delivering food aid was really the best way to help people living an essentially unsustainable lifestyle, unchanged in centuries. The issue, I thought, raised some interesting questions about aid and development. In the subject line of the email I asked what I thought was a deliberately provocative question that encapsulated the current state of the debate: "Pastoralists - are they buggered?" I was less than amused to see that line subsequently appear on the press officer's blog, under the heading "See what I have to deal with" or some such.(The blog no longer exists.) Anyway, can't we all just get along a bit? It's one thing to moan to your mates down the pub. But shouldn't we think twice about airing our grievances on the internet?
It would be great if this could have been diffused down the pub with a drink, but I live in the bush and the grievance wasn't mine. Instead it belonged to a village who've been mostly understanding these past few months but didn't see the point of not killing lions if journalists were going 'to write bad things anyway'.
Adam was made aware of the impact the article was having, and in terms of protecting lions and leopards it is terribly important that we keep the villagers on our side, and so a public airing showed our support for the village.
It was after publishing the blog post that an amendment was made on the BBC article online (although this may have happened anyway), and the blog post kept the village happy until then - they could see the post and the BBC article by going online with their mobile phones.
It's not just about the relationship between journalists and 'press officers', but about the wider audience that the story affects. A blog post may sightly bruise the ego of a journalist from time to time, but the press have to realise that they are no longer the authoritative voice in a public forum.