Al Jazeera Did Not Even Try
You would have expected that Al Jazeera knew they were going to do an investigative journalism piece, so they would prepare the money, and also have some courage to face the risk that came with it. But no — all they did was get some spy cameras and a few Chinese-looking people who could act the role of Gangsters.
Most names have been left out to not show support for the misleading work that Al Jazeera did.
Unworthy evidence
CCTV footages of two people carrying closed suitcases were circulated as smuggling gold, with no clear indication that the contents were actually gold; no footage to show that they contained gold. Consider that those two people could have been carrying their personal belongings. Wasn’t the essence of the investigative-journalism piece to show us footage of what’s in the suitcases?
And the CCTV footage, too, was grainy. Their faces could not be seen clearly.
Anybody can do that: take a CCTV camera footage of an actor, claim he/she is carrying gold, drop his picture in a documentary, and then bring it before the court of public opinion to destroy another’s personality. Which is exactly what happened.
Interview-based journalism
A former wife of one of the accused and a junior brother of the same were given spotlights to accuse the subject of smuggling gold. The plot twist is, they played a phone recording, where the accused, Mohammed Khan, admitted that one of his companies, Coral, had made deals for which he could be arrested. That is a win for them. But if interviews have replaced investigative journalism, lies would replace truth in the media more easily, and it will be to a greater extent than it is today.
There was no evidence
The documentary was about Gold smuggling. But we didn’t see any gold being smuggled. Isn’t it surprising that the entire four-hour documentary that spanned 4 episodes didn’t show any gold being carried by any person, whether in a bag or a suitcase? The only gold shown in the documentary was montages.
One, there were neatly arranged gold pieces with the camera panning over them.
Another was a gold refinery process.
There were also infographics to illustrate how they go about the gold smuggling process. All were clear montages.
Accusation-based journalism
Their hidden cameras were set in lounges, recording people being questioned as to how they would go about smuggling gold. Those people would then mention names of top profiles who they say have been involved in Gold smuggling or have committed other heinous crimes — some not even related to gold smuggling. There was one who, in the video, was said to have overthrown Zimbabwe’s former president, Robert Mugabe. The viewer will inherently believe this; it could be true, but it could also be a lie. Those people were not part of the investigation, nor did they take the effort to investigate the allegations.
They didn’t want to spend money
So Al Jazeera had a clear shot to meet the president of Zimbabwe for a one-on-one meeting, the country they focused on for the gold smuggling, but they didn’t take it. The president is also alleged in the documentary to be the head kingpin and the reason for the smuggling. One person stated that Zimbabwe was banned from exporting gold, and hence, they smuggle it for the president. All they had to do was to pay $100,000 to meet him, but they refused. Consider Anas Aremeyaw Anas, who probably paid more for his “Number 12" exposé; he gave $65,000 to Kwesi Nyantakyie alone. So if we add the referees and the match commissioners who were also paid, we could be coming to or going over $100,000. Al Jazeera just didn’t want to spend money on the documentary.
Conclusion
In all, people’s reputations have been tarnished. I see such shambolic investigative journalism taking over the journalism world, with the one that provoked me the most being James O’Keefe of Project Veritas claiming the United States Postal Service was still accepting ballots in the 2020 election. Anybody could be attacked this way, whether or not he has committed the crime he/she is being accused of. And you would have expected investigative journalism to provide irrefutable evidence to confirm or disprove our greatest fears and suspicions.
