Serious of allegations that could not be substantiated by facts and evidences

Dear Abel

First of all, ENA would like to thank you for your comment dated 2/22/2010 under a topic” incompetence or carelessness” concerning the error that appeared in ENA’s news story and posted very briefly on its website on 2/21/2010.

It is a duty as same time a privilege for any responsible citizen to react on mistakes done by the media and help them correct before further damage is done or to give comment when one feels dissatisfaction over media services or products thereby help them improve the quality of their services and products.  ENA gives special regards to any constructive comment that come from any quarter of the society, including from you.  Because it strongly believes that comments are the most valuable feedback to correct its mistakes and improve the quality of its products and the service it provides to the public. In general, comments /feedback are considered with the agency as a mirror to see where it is in terms of giving an efficient and quality service to the public.

That was why ENA was grateful for your comment which will help alert its staff to make maximum precaution to guard against the recurrence of such mistakes as that of observed in the above mentioned story.

For your information, the mistake was done in the process of the translation of the story from Amharic into English where the journalist mistook the + the 32 million eligible voters expected to vote in the forthcoming national election + for the number of voters registered so far in the country. This was what happened. But the journalist had realized soon the mistake he made and posted the corrected version of the news on ENA’s web while dispatching the same version to local subscribers. Not 15 or so minutes passed since the news with factual error was posted and replaced by corrected one. That was what happened.

   Although the agency appreciates your comment, it will be impossible for ENA to say nothing about the hasty generalization and judgmental statements you made concerning its service and products with out having concrete evidences that will substantiate your serious allegation.   

Earlier, you stated that EPRDF’s enemy was EPRDF itself and question why it couldn’t have its own web site after observing the factual error in ENA’s above mentioned story, an error that was corrected soon, as though you detected major factual errors frequently. What makes you say this? Have you observed many major information flaws in the agency’s stories? If you have, your statement would have been acceptable. Besides, don’t forget that ENA is a respected governmental institution that has been serving the public and government as well as EPRDF for many years. One or so mistakes observed could not be used to downplay the service it has provided so far to EPRDF and the government.

Mistakes are not usually exclusive for certain organizations and thus, even EPRDF, if it has own website, as you say, can not be immune to error as long as humans are involved.

In your comment on page 1 of para-2, you stated that: “ I am among the many Ethiopians who are taken aback by some of the obvious lack of quality deliverance often exhibited by… and ENA…” ENA admits that it has some limitations on the quality of its products. But it might have been helpful for the agency if you mention at least some specific examples so that the agency can try to address the shortcomings.

On the same page para-3, you declared:” …ENA are sometimes doing disservice the very people they were supposed to serve; and to the good efforts of the institution they represent.” Is it fair to evaluate the whole works of the institution by taking one, perhaps some more mistakes seen in its news stories as major measurements to judge the agency as it “sometimes disservice” the public it supposed to serve?”

Further in the same paragraph you claimed that “some people have been critical of this shoddy performance and are questioning if that could be a well orchestrated work of few who dislike the good image of Ethiopia, disgruntled individuals who are eager to gain political scores by maligning the institution or lack of focus in quality deliverance.”

This is a very serious allegation which you couldn’t have proved to be correct by presenting substantial and specific evidences.

First, you tried to claim that there are other people who agree on this allegation of yours by using the words “some people” when in fact ENA hasn’t so far received any comment declaring its works are “Shoddy performance” except yours. In deed, the agency receives many comments from a lot of people suggesting that such kinds of problems or weakness they observed in its products/service need to be addressed.  But non of these comments made such judgmental statements. Even those researchers who had made content analysis on ENA’s news had not dared to make such bold conclusion: “Shoddy performance. Therefore,  this allegation is absolutely groundless lacking substantial evidences or it is nothing but a hasty  generalization that was made using one or so incidents as its base.

Second, you used the factual error observed in the agency’s story that appeared on 2/21/2010 on its web for a very brief period , an error even corrected soon without being aired by any local media and without being exposed to readers on the web for so long, and made very bold assumption that it (the error)  “could be a well orchestrated work of few who dislike the good image of Ethiopia or lack of focus in quality deliverance,” as if major mistakes appear frequently.

An assumption as serious as this one should actually be made if only one has found major information flaw or major mistakes in the agency’s products frequently. If such facts are found, it would then also be acceptable to accuse those “few” or “individuals” in the agency, as you say, of orchestrating to tarnish the good image of the country or blame the agency for failing to discharge its responsibility. 

However, in the absence of sufficient facts and evidences, making such assumptions would be taken as an intention to discredit ENA’s good service to the public and demoralize those limited but dedicated staff working in the English desk with ENA in particular.

In the same paragraph you also said “making mistakes is part of a human nature but presenting similar news with five million difference is a major information flaw…” Here it is fully acceptable that the error was a major information flaw,  as you say, which is highly regrettable. It will difficult to clearly put how the mistake occurred.  But in short, as indicated in the above, the mistake was done in the process of the translation of the story from Amharic into English where the journalist mistook the + the 32 million eligible voters expected to vote in the forthcoming national election + for the number of voters registered so far in the country. That was why the difference in the figure observed in the story in question.

Your comment that alleges”… failing to acknowledge and correct the mistake in time is even worst: stupidity,” was absolutely unfounded. First, it was ENA itself, which had first realized and made the correction not after being reminded by you or any body else. Second, the correction was made 15 minutes later after the first news was released and was not late to make this. Where is the bases for this accusation? Nothing. You even went far and call this as stupidity. Would you sir mind your language for you are insulting a well respected governmental institution that has been serving the nation for about 70 years. 

What the Agency want you to realize is that you yourself did further damage by running the mistake ENA did on your website for quite a considerable time and letting know more people than actually been and opening more room for those who have the wish to abuse it.  Your comment would have been more valuable if sent directly to ENA instead of posting it on the Internet.

The other important thing which you overlooked in your comment was to take into account the positive and the valuable role this great and one of Africa’s ancient wire service played in informing and educating the public by providing timely and accurate information since its inception many years ago.

One incident or certain mistakes, which are often done by any other media in the world including giant media, (check their content on Internet), should not be used to evaluate the products and service of ENA and make judgments or make hasty generalization by capitalizing on the errors and forgetting the general and good services in which ENA has been providing for such a long time.