WRITING
FOR THE MEDIA
Ikiemoye
Iniamagha
Writing for the
traditional mass media (radio, television, newspaper, magazine) has always been
serious business. The mass media are organizations saddled with the
responsibility of disseminating accurate, unbiased, and timely information to a
diverse, vast, spread and heterogeneous audience, in real or delayed time. To
meet this responsibility of information dissemination, the traditional mass
media recruit trained individuals called Journalists. However, with the advent
of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), the media profession has
become threatened by the activities of untrained citizens who passionately,
aggressively, selflessly, maliciously and most of the time disseminate
unverified information on the current media trend today known as the new media or social media, resulting in these untrained information
disseminators being addressed as Citizen Journalists.
Although the activities
of citizen journalists have not been devoid of criticisms as the issues of
‘Hate Speech’ and ‘Fake news’ become common clichés, citizen journalism
unarguably has found a solid and breeding space in today’s world. Besides, it
has become obvious that today the traditional mass media function more
effectively in their information dissemination duties in their utilization of
the same new media (evolving trend) citizen journalists thrive on. This further
cements the fact that citizen journalism must be taken very seriously just as
the trained professionals of traditional journalism. If this is the case, then
emphasis should be laid on journalists (both traditional or citizen) improving
their journalistic writing skills for effective information dissemination.
Journalism practice
requires that the information needs of media audience sare met with every sense
of responsibility, reasonableness and rationality for the creation of better societies.
This is what the Social Responsibility
Theory suggests. Mcquail (1992) summarizes this theory as follows:
·
Media should accept and fulfill certain
obligations to society; these obligations are mainly to be met by setting high
professional standards of informativeness, truth, accuracy, objectivity and
balance.
·
Society and the public have a right to
expect high standards of performance, and intervention can be justified for
public good.
·
The media should avoid whatever might
lead to crime violence or civil disorder or give offence to minority.
·
The media as a whole should be pluralist
and reflect the diversity of their society giving access to various views and
to right of reply.
·
Journalists and media professionals
should be accountable to society as well as employers and the market.
Going with the first
two points, journalists are condemned to maintain ‘high standards’ in their
reportage. Nevertheless, in my opinion, as far as their roles are concerned,
their knowledge (competence) and proper application (performance) of the
language of communication, which in Nigeria is English, should be impeccable
and devoid of ambiguities that would lead to misinformation. Even though
Mcquail did not include speaking and writing skills in his mention of setting
high professional standards, it would not be out of order to say that
linguistic skills are requisites in ensuring accuracy, objectivity, balance, in
their reportage. If a journalist misapplies a word or phrase and misinforms his
audience, he has invariably breached his contract with the people for
disseminating inaccurate news which was marred by his choice of words.
Moreover, there is the Development Media theory that
commissions the press to always focus on the business of national development
as a matter of obligation. In doing so, journalists have the “right to
communicate” as well as “the need to use communication to achieve social change
and better life” (Daramola, 2003:274). For instance, in reporting the
President’s speech on fighting insecurity in the North, media professionals
could apply their linguistic and development communication skills to raise the
hopes of citizens who may be wallowing in despair of insecurity. Let us compare
the two reports below to explain this point:
REPORT 1: The President
in his speech vows to defeat the insurgents in 2021.
REPORT 2: The President
in his speech expresses hopes that insurgency would be contained by 2021.
Which of the above
reports sounds very assuring to you? REPORT 1 does it for me! It satisfies the yearnings
of the people who are directly affected by the menace and are in dire need of
liberation from the dreaded insurgents. Whereas REPORT 1 presents the President
as taking the bull by the horn, with a strong resolve to go all out for the
insurgents, REPORT 2 only euphemizes the President’s fears on the fight against
insurgency. The second report does not
in any way show seriousness; rather, it may have only demoralised the people
who wished that their President rescued them from their misery.
Based on the foregoing,
there is no contradiction that the writing skills of media professionals would
need to be improved on so that they would fulfill their contract with the
people, which is the accurate, unbiased, and timely dissemination of
information. Little wonder Allen (2003:7) said that it is the job of media
professionals ‘to communicate clearly and effectively, to be understood without
difficulty, and to offer viewers and listeners an intelligent use of language
which they can enjoy. Good writing is not a luxury; it is an obligation.’
In the course of
writing this, ‘I received a WhatsApp message on my phone’ (and not: “a WhatsApp
message was sent to me” since well trained journalists must avoid the passive
voice in their report writing) and it reads:
“A leading Nigerian newspaper is
looking to employ 25 excellent writers for beat reporting, feature writing,
investigative stories and so on. The ideal candidates are preferably young with
excellent WRITING SKILLS, passionate about journalism and ready for new
challenges…”
The foregoing
advertisement simply corroborates what I have stated—the need for journalists to
improve on their writing skills, especially amidst untrained individuals who
because of the new (social) media trends have been leveraged to operate without
restrictions. Media personalities have only one thing to do: to raise the bar
in their writing skills as it were for effective information dissemination.
I have selected for
elucidation (Table 1) eight out of the many regularly used erroneous
grammatical expressions that I have come across in my research on reports filed
in by traditional journalists of reputable media outfits which may have
resulted in some sort of misinformation, and must be avoided if they must meet
current (social) media trends.
Table 1
|
No. |
Inappropriate expression |
Appropriate
expression |
|
1. |
Invited guests |
Guests |
|
2. |
Armed Bandits |
Bandits |
|
3. |
Electioneering campaign |
Electioneering/Political campaign |
|
4. |
…to investigate into… |
…to carry out an investigation into… |
|
5. |
…at several locations… |
…at many locations… |
|
6. |
…to enter into Memorandum of Understanding |
…enter into an agreement/ sign a Memorandum of Understanding |
|
7. |
…investigations revealed that… |
…investigations suggested that… |
|
8. |
…repatriated
back… |
…repatriated… |
Some Nigerian
journalists commit grammatical sins that some of their well informed media
audiences would not be guilty of. I know English is the second language of many
practicing journalists in Nigeria, and would wish to pardon them for some of
their ungrammaticalities and unacceptabilities. However, because it is required
of them to execute their jobs with high professional standards, including in
the language of communication, they are left with no other choice than improve
on their report writing skills for optimum delivery.
For example, in number
1 of Table 1, there would be no need to modify guest with invited since
a guest is someone that has been
INVITED to a social function. Several journalists make this mistake and it does
not denote good writing. Thus, rather than saying the invited guests were all
seated by eleven O’clock, the correct expression would be the guests
were all seated by eleven O’clock.
The same is applicable
to number 2: armed bandits. Bandits are
thieves with weapons; so just bandits is
good enough. But even at the moment speaking, there might have been a news
report on armed bandits attacked travelers
along Kaduna-Abuja highway. Although the report may not have confused the
media audience as the message seem clear, it is still not of ‘high professional
standard’ because of armed. Journalists
must know which expressions are grammatical, acceptable and appropriate for
their reports.
Going forward, be it
traditional or the new media, anyone writing for the media should do the
following as Ayodele Aliyu captures it on ‘Words
and Phrases in the News’, a compilation for the Journalism Department of
the Federal Radio Corporation:
·
Write short, simple sentences
·
Write in present tense
·
Use action verbs
·
Make every word count
·
Omit unnecessary words
·
Get the listener’s or (reader’s, my
addition) in the first sentence
·
Emphasise names
·
Use repetition
·
Avoid synonyms
·
Name the source at the beginning of a
sentence, if the source involved is important
·
Be objective
·
Spell out everything, even numbers.
·
Practise good grammar
·
You don’t hear things the same way you
read them.
·
Avoid verbose and highfalutin words
Imagine a journalist
writing short, simple sentences and omitting unnecessary wordswhich might
confuse the media consumer; that would lead to effective communication which is
what the job is all about. Anyone that finds joy in being verbose and using
highfalutin words would only cause apathy in his audience because media
consumers generally are not impressed by them. Communicating effectively
requires some skill, and the above mentioned are ‘must dos’ in writing for the
(broadcast) media.
The trend today is
about disseminating, sharing information and getting feedback in real time with
the intention to cause instant impact on the audience. And if impact is the
motivation for every information disseminated, then SKILL is key. Truth is,
anybody can write anything, but the media professional cannot afford to write
anything without considering accuracy and certainty. This is why he must
endeavour to improve on his writing skill.
The question comes: how
can writing skills be improved on to meet evolving media trends? Simple! First,
personal development and then writing workshops, where media personalities
would be exposed to their deficiencies, should be organized. Albeit one cannot
teach an old dog new trick, I would say it is never too late for media
professionals, in spite of whatever years of experience they might have
garnered in the job, to unlearn practices that do not promote high professional
standards even in their writing.
Works Cited
Allen
J. (2003), The BBC News Styleguide
Daramola,
I. (2003), Introduction to Mass
Communication. 2nd Edition. Lagos: Rotham Press Ltd
Mcquail, D. (1992), Media Organisational Performance Models and
Research Options. London: Sage Publications Inc
Oxford
Advanced Learners’ English Dictionary 7th Edition