Rampholo Molefhe
18 July 2008
opinion
The passing of Workers' Day on May 1, and Press freedom Day two days later without much fanfare should have raised questions about the state of journalism, which is inextricably tied to that of labour in general.
On the labour end of journalism there is the art and craft of gathering and recording factual information about events for public consumption as close to the time when they happen as possible.
Secondly, such news reporting is guided by the voluntary adherence to the principles of professional behaviour and ethics developed over centuries by practising craftsmen in journalism.
Thirdly, the professionals meet at the trade union where they discuss professional issues relating to training and skills development, adaptation to new technologies in the communication of news, positioning of the profession in relation to political, social and economic developments, including the establishment of self regulatory mechanisms closely guided by sensitivity to the art and craft, and to ethics and principles of professional behaviour.
There have been varied levels of development in the art and craft of reporting in the various sections of the Botswana press, which is of two types, the state media wholly owned and controlled by the government, and the private press, here posing as community projects and there as purely private business enterprises.
The highest level of development in terms of diversification, development and accumulation of skills, and the lifting of the craft to an art, has occurred in the state press.
Skill here refers to mastery of language. That is, the building of a vocabulary appropriate for the areas of reporting that the Botswana press has covered over the years; politics, business, regional news, sports and entertainment reported as 'hard news' or current events, features on development news, analysis or opinion.
A proper grasp of grammar, or the rules by which one word is placed next to the other, is also an important aspect of the mastery of language.
Further, the journalist must be sensitive to the culture of the audience for which he or she is writing. Writing guides broadcasting of the radio and television varieties. Culture refers to custom, tradition, folklore, the arts in general, and more specifically to the political, social and economic development of the country and its peoples.
Good craftsmanship results from the use of these aspects of language into the techniques developed over time to meet the demands of immediacy, accuracy and ease of reading for the target audience of the specific medium of reporting.
The good story is the one that takes 20 words - preferably fewer - to announce what happened, where, why, who did it, how, and when in what might be called the 'lead' or the opening paragraph.
Every ensuing paragraph reveals one or two verifiable facts that are absolutely necessary to add more information to the initial announcement in the 'lead' paragraph. Everything else becomes irrelevant.
There is no place for 'Gatwe e rile' - Many, many years ago... in journalism. The introduction of a story must say: Spiralling petrol prices are likely to drive taxis off the road, the Ministry of Transport announced this morning. (18 words)
The next statement might say: Permanent secretary, Tiro Tsie, encouraged passengers to fight increasing fuel costs by sharing transport to work and to school.
It is wrong to write: The permanent secretary in the Ministry of Transport, Tiro Tsie, announced this morning that spiralling petrol prices are likely to drive taxis off the road, encouraging passengers to fight increasing fuel costs by sharing transport to work and to school. (40 words).
Firstly, the eyes don't like to see 40 words, containing two or three ideas before they arrive at a full stop. Secondly, in the first example of two sentences there are 37 words. In the bad example there are 40.
The second example wastes three words or the equivalent of one third of a column centimetre in a standard size column on a tabloid size page, the most common in the Botswana newspapers. That is a lot of space if it happens 20 times on each page in a 32 page newspaper. That's 200 words lost, or a story with a picture, or two short stories.
Journalism, unlike essay writing, school compositions, poetry and novels, pursues economy of words with unrelenting vigour, employing adjective and adverbs only if they add the most profound value to the mental picture of the verbs enormous.
For example: Rocky's panic-stricken corner dragged the bloodied boxer off the ring mat onto the stretcher in the second minute of the third round.
Secondly, journalism wants to reveal everything about the event from the onset. Suspension is the stuff of horror movies just as punch lines make for good jokes. Not journalism! In summary, the first aspect of journalism concerns itself with vocabulary, grammar, culture and technique, after which might be added individual style. Personal style follows but does not precede words, rules, culture and professional technique.
Ethics
For lack of space and fear of departing from the main purpose of this contribution, I should submit only that war has played a great role in helping journalists to lay the moral obligations and professional conscience of the journalist.
An order given by a general may cost his foot soldiers their lives, or save them. That is the stark contrast - life and death - in the possible consequences that a general's orders may have.
At another level, the soldier also has the responsibility, on account of his conscience, to judge whether or not to kill an unarmed soldier or civilian of the enemy tribe, nation or ideological camp.
The Jews and Israel hold the Nazi generals responsible for the annihilation of six million of their ilk at World War II. The present generation of Afrikaners believe that they have nothing to do with the crimes of the parents and forefathers who killed Africans in the service of preserving and protecting apartheid?
The journalists, like society in general, had to develop a set of moral rules and professional guidelines according to which, their obligations to the larger society would be regulated.
Forty years ago, increased accessibility to factual information changed the complexion of American politics precisely because the journalists took the position that the 'truth' should be told. Successive governments and army generals had previously held that patriots, including journalists, should have reported the Vietnam War in a way that showed that the United States and South Vietnam were winning when in fact evidence on the ground indicated the opposite.
It is this moral and professional quandary that fuelled the debate about the trustworthiness of information relayed by the 'embedded' journalists as against the reporting of the independent journalists who declined to be instructed by the United States government and its army generals in Iraq.
The 'independent journalists' found and reported the information that showed that core reasons that George Bush and Tony Blair gave to invade Iraq were untruthful. Others have called the false reasons 'fabricated lies'.
Following the much celebrated 'collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc' in the western imperialist countries, much blame was cast upon the journalists of Czechoslovakia, Poland, and other USSR inclined eastern European countries who were accused of conniving with the 'communist states' against the forces of reform and democracy.
Yet again, the question arose: Can the journalists claim innocence on account of obedience to officialdom, or should they stand by the most compelling of the principles of professional ethics and behaviour: the first obligation of the journalist is to the truth.
These moral and professional questions were very present when the Africans wanted liberation from settler colonialism in South Africa and Rhodesia not so long ago. The questions still arise, perhaps not so sharply, as the journalists address the roles of the state and private press. There is no genuine public press. Neither is there a community based press.
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