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Dear African media why do you show dead bodies in print & on websites?

Violence in America is because of gun exposure & seeing violence daily why don't African media outlets think this too

By IwriteMywrongsPublished about a year ago Updated about a year ago 6 min read
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Dear African media why do you show dead bodies in print & on websites?
Photo by Bank Phrom on Unsplash

I'm frankly disgusted, I had to say something. After living in 2 African countries, with several social media accounts opened with African SIM cards (phone numbers) the brutality is different.

Today was the last damn straw, why is desensitizing African citizens including children to seeing dead, mutilated bodies ok?

Kenyans laughed, joked and went on about a married man driving his car into a body of water and drowning. In his car with him was an unknown woman, the man told his wife he was in some sort of work meeting. He was quickly identified but the woman was just identified on 26 January 2023 by her family.

The Kenyan news outlet posted photos where you can clearly see the woman in the water, dead. This isn't the worse I've seen in African media.

Cameroon a man that they made sure to identify as a white European because his race mattered so much to the readers....not at all.

He was in a car with 4 people, when the accident took place, yet he was the only one to die. He was brutally killed in the accident oddly no one else was injured but his body was shown.

Ghana often shows dead bodies on the cover of their news papers, once a pick up truck with 4 dead bodies laid out for all to see. One news paper outlet blurred the faces not the blood.

Again in Ghana the Johnson family was found dead in their home. The husband died on the toilet the woman was wrapped in a blanket, the children just there alive but not functioning. There is not only photos of the man but videos on YouTube.

YouTube is assisting this brutality, a young man drowned in the University of Ghana at East Legon. When his friends pulled his lifeless body from the water his penis lay out while everyone stared at him. There was no CPR just his dead body and nakedness.

YouTube has yet to remove the video and now there are several of them with his naked body. One onlooker can be heard laughing as his dead body lays there. [Sad As Level 100 Legon Student Dies At The Pool Side]

Violence and the Media: How the Media Impacts Violence

Media Violence & Kids

Many studies have been done on how watching violent movies and television shows affects children. In one famous study in the 1970s, children watched either a violent cops-and-robbers movie or a nonviolent sporting event. Afterwards, they played with a group of other children. The ones who watched the violent movie were more aggressive when playing with the other children.

Numerous studies have had similar results, though most of them have shown that the effect of media violence is strongest on the children who already have violent tendencies. That is, watching violent movies may influence children's behavior by amplifying their violent tendencies, but it won't necessarily produce violent tendencies.

There are also some long-term studies that have shown that the more violent media a child is exposed to, the more violence they display in their teens and adulthood. However, it's important to note that with most of these studies, there is evidence of correlations, not of causal effects.

Source: Study.Com

Edwin Chiloba a Kenyan fashion designer was brutally murdered. His eyes and body showed signs of his tragic end, he too was posted online in news articles. The police are standing there allowing bystanders to snap away photos of him.

Since Chiloba was an LGTBQ activist and assumed homosexual they didn't care about this murder much. He took can be found still online, brutal photos.

My husband's uncle and my brother in-law were both posted on Facebook a few years ago. That was how I found out about their deaths, from photos of their dead bodies on social media, which is common on my Kenyan Facebook page.

Another man died at work in the tea factory in a village in Kisii County Kenya. He was found by the first person that came into work that morning to the Eberege Tea Factory. He was promptly posted online before his family was notified as I saw the post which showed it was posted minutes before I saw it.

I can go on with more examples, I read the news in over 43 countries, I get the covers of many news papers too, All for everyone to see are these photos. African countries seem to do this more than any others.

I'm speaking of 20 different African countries.

These news papers aren't hard to find, you can locate them on Twitter or go to their Facebook pages and follow them. There you can see photos of anything and everything on the cover. Living in Ghana they sell these news papers on the street, they bring them to your car windows.

Authors Photo

Yes, you can see the dead bodies, gruesome murders in your face up-close in the morning. Your children can too, they hang from makeshift stands on the roadsides as well.

Just Googling murders or crimes these website results come up and when you click the links you can see anything. This is how I saw the dead body of Edwin Chiloba, it was frightening, heart-breaking he was such a beautiful human.

Authors Photo Drinking Water in Ghana

When writing to inform citizens that there is feces in their water they used the word 'shit.' It was on the cover of a few news papers. Some used the word feces instead but most used the word shit.

From UTV News Ghana Social media pages

I don't understand why a dead body and violence online and in the news in some African countries is alright. There are currently a lot of violent conflicts, fighting and terrorism taking place in several African countries.

Tribal fighting in Northern Ghana, a small civil war in Cameroon as the English speaking region wants to break away from the French speaking part of Cameroon. Terrorism in the Sahel area of Western Africa, with countries like Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali, Nigeria dealing with groups invading their countries.

In Eastern Africa, Kenya has been dealing with higher crime. civilians affected by terrorism. The DR Congo as well as South Sudan all dealing with conflicts, fighting and death.

Isn't there enough violence in the world? God knows how much violence children in conflict ridden countries have seen. Africans seem so insulted when people who aren't African speak up about African issues.

My writing can get me killed in some countries especially writing about racism from Black Africans towards anyone that isn't Black. These things however need to be spoken about. Western countries know the effects of seeing constant violent images but why doesn't African countries?

Better yet why don't they care? While many African countries attack homosexuality saying that it causes children to 'turn gay' one of the dumbest concepts ever heard in life. Why don't Africans think seeing violent images make children become violent.

Thank you for reading 🙏🏽 Please consider buying a coffee for Lacey's House efforts in Gender Equality & Children's Rights as it tries to move international.

©️TB Obwoge 2023 All Rights Reserved

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About the Creator

IwriteMywrongs

I'm the president of a nonprofit. I've lived in 3 countries, I love to travel, take photos and help children and women around the world! One day I pray an end to Child Marriages, Rape and a start to equal Education for ALL children 🙏🏽

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