Umran Hussain
Half stories are as dangerous as half knowledge. The ethics of journalism teaches us to publish a “complete” story. Complete in all aspects, statements of both the sides, the truth and finally the law that is supposed to take its own course.
A woman in a viral video alleged domestic violence and accuses her husband of brutality. She even shows the violence marks on her body while ruthlessly crying in the video.
Social media platforms are flooded with the video with hundreds of pages and individual accounts sharing the video and for obvious reasons.
There is no denying the fact that such incidents deserve attention and should be brought into limelight, but before listening to the other side of the story, we need to stay calm, we need to present the “half stories” without being judgemental.
Once the video was shared on Facebook and other social media platforms, people in comment section demanded stern action against the husband of the woman. Yes, he deserves to be behind the bars but that is upto the law enforcing agencies to decide, not the Facebook warriors.
We had hundreds of such instances in the past where the one side of the story turned out to be a hoax. People demanded action in those instances too but in most of the cases they had to regret.
Jumping the gun is never an option, being judgemental is dangerous, especially when we have no knowledge of the other side of story.
The lady in the video is definitely in pain, the violence marks are evident and her being an orphan cannot be overlooked, but we need to use our all expertise to report such cases. All we can do is to request the administration and the police to look into the issue but we can never take the law in our own hands.
