Editor,

RE: "View of Rwanda as espoused by The Economist smirks of neo-colonialism” (The New Times, July 21).

Sometimes I feel like no one should respond to such nonsense, but no—silence might mean we are in agreement. I am not a journalist but my little knowledge is that professional journalists don't just produce articles without making research, in other words they have to have facts.

I have always thought that The Economist reporters were professionals who cannot sit wherever they are and imagine a story about a country they hardly know and then produce such biased article. The problem here is that they wrote about things that are there to see by everyone who visits or knows Rwanda. Things that do not require much research.

Should we say that these reporters are too lazy to do some simple research or were they bribed to the extent that they agreed to sell their reputation?

Donna

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People should not forget that the likes of The Economist are usually used by powerful NGOs, like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch to validate their biased findings. It’s just a continuation of what the two NGOs started two weeks ago.

More are still to come; fasten your seat belts!

Jean-Marie

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Sometimes I think we fixate too much on the slandering and smears that Western 'nattering nabobs of negativity' love to dish out about us, which only encourages them to manufacture and spread even more smelly 'manure'. It might just be a better approach to let them bark while we get on with what we have been doing so well, rebuilding our country and emancipating ourselves from their hand of death and stagnation.

No rejoinder to their fictional narrative about Rwanda's reality will in any case change their story lines. And so, why waste our valuable time rebutting things they perpetually make up about us, completely ignoring our responses and the contrary reality anyone else who visits our country can see for themselves.

One reader Donna also states that though she is not a journalist, the little knowledge she has is that 'professional journalists don't just produce articles without making research in other words they have to have facts!' That is what they would like people to believe, but it is far from the truth.

Just re-read the principal Western media in the run-up to the many recent wars waged by the West against the hapless countries they had targeted for destruction, such as Iraq or Libya and the definitive way in which they reported unsubstantiated evidence-free claims as incontrovertible facts and your eyes will become open to their manipulative ways.

The US so-called newspaper of record, The New York Times, and their star reporter Judith Miller, are the iconic representatives of Western media manipulation of those who are too credulous because of this media's perceived credibility.

My view is that our own very own KT (which often engages in tabloid-type reporting) may in fact be more credible than The Economist, VOA, BBC, France 24, Reuters, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the lot.

Bottom line: Don't judge what you read from the so-called mainstream Western media based on their perceived reputation. It is very often no more truthful than the many tall stories we are frequently fed by our own 'journalists' that a frequent commentator in this paper has slated for their propensity to score own goals.

Mwene Kalinda