Newspapers here to stay but editors can do better
To borrow from the current national “reggae” grammar “nobody can stop newspapers”!
This is a medium whose demise has been pronounced times without number, but it soldiers on. Social media, the blue-eyed kid on the block, may be booming, but the old soldier—the newspaper—fights on.
With all the snide remarks of how newspapers are only useful for this or that, the headlines in the newspapers attract intense debate daily.
The same people who see no significant use of the newspaper guard their image jealously and nowhere more so than on a newspaper page.
That is why what goes on in a newspaper enterprise matters. Given this importance, it is essential that those tasked with the responsibility of putting out the copy of the paper be alert.
They cannot afford a wink on the job. And yet the recklessness with which some of them attend to their responsibility is astounding.
The examples taken from some of the issues this last week are telling.
On March 5, a local daily published a headline: “How Tuju gambled his billions”.
Raphael Tuju, the subject of the headline, is the secretary general of Jubilee Party and a Cabinet Secretary without a portfolio. The past few months have not been kind to Tuju.
He has been in court fighting over financial transactions relating to his businesses. From the look of things, the battle has not been going his way.
Then it happened that as Tuju was travelling to Nakuru attend the funeral of retired President Moi, he was involved in an accident that left him with multiple injuries. He had to be flown to London for specialised treatment.
Those close to Tuju say he is a gentleman, well-spoken and with no trace of economic mischief in his life.
He has been a minister before and served in several ministries. There is hardly anyone who can point an accusing finger at him for misuse of public resources.
A man of humble beginnings who grew up trading wares at the local market, and first wore underwear in high school, Tuju has done well for himself and is the inspiration to many.
His Christian values are at the core of his interaction with others. Gambling would thus be anathema to Tuju.
Then at a time when he was fighting for his economic and physical health, the paper suggests that he had “gambled” his fortunes away. Talk of kicking a man while he is down. It was unfathomable.
Then another paper carried an obituary announcing the “certain death” of a woman “wife the late” (sic) etc.
Simply put, the obituary was full of errors that a good sub-editor would have picked out effortlessly.
Granted, an obituary is commercial speech, but still that does not absolve the editorial department of responsibility.
The currency of trade for editors is words. They have to be precise, get the words correctly. It is in words and facts that the credibility of the newspaper rests.
A family in mourning can be distraught and, therefore, prone to making mistakes.
But for the mistakes to be immortalised by the failure of those charged with the responsibility of keeping an eye on them amounts to being kicked in the teeth while fallen.
It is likely that the mistakes picked up in these cases were products of negligence. Unfortunately, you do not have to look through a newspaper with a tooth comb to pick up the mistakes and increasingly so these days.
But it is this untidiness that is chipping at the credibility of the newspaper.
Some have blamed training of journalists, but that is an easy target. These mistakes are made by seasoned professionals.
It would be dereliction of duty for any establishment to put the task of the last pair of eyes on the newspaper in the hands of a rookie. Editors should do better. —The writer is Dean, School of Communications, Daystar University
