The murder of the 14-year-old, between truth and facts

2024-11-25 21:44:00, Opinione Lutfi Dervishi

The murder of the 14-year-old, between truth and facts

Journalist Lutfi Dervishi

To understand what happened instinctively, each asks a few simple questions: Who is involved? Where did it happen? How did it happen? Why did it happen?

Many things may have changed in journalism, but not the elements of a news story. At a time when everyone is turned into a journalist with just a cell phone and a social media account, learning the truth is becoming more and more difficult because of the cacophony and because of those who want to see the hidden truth.

Family and society love the truth. Politics and authorities may have other interests. On the one hand, maybe they want to cover what happened, and on the other hand, use the event to avoid public debate from other issues.

These are hypotheses from reading the situation, but only so far.

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What attracts attention is the approach of a journalist who today was publicly demanding an account from the authorities to "clarify the truth".

The event: the tragic murder a week ago of the 14-year-old in Tirana.

Undoubtedly, journalists are also citizens who have the right to expect the truth to be revealed by the authorities, but the media was born precisely to reveal and tell the truth. Not to challenge or compete with law enforcement agencies but to help them or to hold them accountable when they do not perform their duties.

The "truth" so far is what the authorities say, but unfortunately it has been proven time and time again that they often deceive. All the more so that the police or the prosecutor's office, in the interest of the investigation/coverage, can put on the market, through journalists, tracks that are of no interest to them except the truth.

But how is an event that comes and turns into a mystery clarified?

You have to talk to as many sources as possible to understand the truth and you have to be as close to the event as possible.

You need to talk to the children involved, their classmates or neighborhood friends. Teachers and parents should be listened to. You have to talk to the psychologist, the security officer, those who were at the event , those who gave first aid, doctors, nurses, cleaners, psychologists, police, prosecutors, inspectors. With anyone possible. A reporter could have asked in the meantime to see (just to see) the cameras of nearby businesses, precisely to better understand what happened...

The murder of the 14-year-old, between truth and facts

Because the most difficult thing is finding the facts.

"As for the facts... I did not consider it reasonable to describe them according to the testimony of the first person I met on the street, nor "as it occurred to me", but by carefully examining both the events I myself witnessed and those that I learned from others. "Finding" the facts was tiresome, as those who had witnessed each event did not give the same version of the same event, but in each they took one side the other difficulties of remembering after that time had passed".

This 2,500-year-old advice on the facts comes from Thuqiditis, in the introduction to his account of the Peloponnesian War.

Today the truth seems to be even more difficult to come to light because we live in a time when more than listening to the truth is invested in increasing the volume of the noise. The truth is difficult because everyone is a reporter, analyst, lawyer without a license, and is not interested in more light, but more fog.

Today, it is not easy to separate the truth from the half-truth; opinion from rumours, information from disinformation.

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In the era of Artificial Intelligence, it seems paradoxical to return 2500 years later to the search for facts. But the facts, as Tuqiditi used to say, are not easy to find. And above all, they are always subjective when they come from witnesses, authorities or social networks.

In the case of the murder of the 14-year-old, there are still some questions which, even a week after the event, have not received clear answers. Why did it happen? Are there others involved? Were there other causes that we haven't discovered yet?

When you re-read the official statements, you find contradictions, stale generalizations, or details deliberately left in the shadows.

A journalist who is satisfied with the official version should change his profession. Research is not a passive act – it requires a questioning mind and the courage to discover/tell the truth. A good journalist examines every possible lead and does not forget that every detail, no matter how small, can be key to uncovering the truth. And in such cases, more than what is said, what is not being said should be examined. Nothing can be kept hidden forever.

After all, as Tuqiditi wrote, the facts speak even when we don't want to listen to them.