Bloggers are making journalism disgusting; allow, it’s our time!

• Posted on October 21, 2014October 21, 2014
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

It is a common trait of most Ghanaian or better put, African parents to discipline their children (often with cane, belt or any form of inflicting pain on the child) without letting them know why he/she was beaten.

I was chatting with a seasoned Journalist who writes for the an envious newspaper in Ghana when he revealed to me that, he is always angry when he comes online, often on Facebook and sees a news from a tabloid linked to a Facebook page he has liked. Asking him why, his answers were “they degrade journalism; poor grammar, bad spellings, I mean everything about it is just not correct.” He continued to spew how he regrets being a journalist in this era because “Bloggers simply make the work disgusting.”

As he continued to talk, he mentioned that, in those days when Journalism was attractive, Kofi Coomson, Eben Quarcoe, Kabral Blay Amihere, Kwaku Sakyi Addo and others were models most up and coming could learn from, “but today, what can the kids learn from these Bloggers? Nothing Nana, nothing!”

Before he ended his ‘speech,’ I opened a link which had a story on Ex President Rawlings. He was quick to point out “waa see, what is this English. You see why I’m angry? How can you use this grammar?” Unknowingly to him, that was a story written by him and was sourced on another website. I scrolled down to the last part of the story and his name was boldly written with his medium in a bracket. He was defendless  and didn’t know what to say. “That is your story right? Everything here was sourced from your medium’s website. Not even a word was changed.,” I told him and he unconvincingly tried to shift blame on the web master at his workplace.

I  do not encourage copy and paste but just as even BBC, TMZ, Bossip et al source stories, it is clear indication that, one medium cannot get it all, you will need to cushion your reports with others to satisfy customers for the day. I am so aware that, most reports online written by Bloggers sometimes have a lot of unpardonable grammatical errors but just as children need guidance when trying to walk, the same way the veterans in the media should prompt and correct a Blogger when they find mistakes in their reportage. We at www.233times.net are lucky to have trained Journalist friends who often correct us in our reportage, better put, ghost editors.

Lately, the new crop of Journalists, (Bloggers) break stories even faster than the traditional media. I can confidently mention of ‘Castro’s mysterious disappearance’ which was first reported by OMGGHANA, Funny Face’s Range Rover gifted him by Adebayor was first revealed on www.233times.net among countless examples.  These two stories became the major stories in the traditional media the day after. The ‘trained Journalists’ followed these stories and detailed the world. Truthfully, social media have become the budding stage of major stories today.

Admittedly, traffic and likes are the interest of every Blogger. But then again, there should be some decorum in this practice because truth be told, Bloggers are Journalists too. I don’t want to say this but it is needed; the traditional media need the social media and vice versa; the relationship now between the two has become inextricably intertwined so the ‘senior’ Journalists should guide the ‘crawling’ Journalists especially when they notice errors in their reportage.

The worst part of being corrected  is not understanding what you were corrected for. Bloggers should be applauded for a good work done because that has given the youth a space to channel their grievances. In a country with a youthful population, all things being equal, the future is in Ghana and so the voices of the youth must be given attention. Blogs are where they get to meet the President, Ministers, MPs and their favourite icons.

Sarkodie often reveals he won the BET award because of the aggression of his fans. These were via the blogs with great influence which drew all the youths to tweet at @BETAfrica to help Michael Owusu win that award.

These youths are not misusing the internet to fraud people because in their field of work, they are the best people to fraud so many people since being online for some years gives one the experience to know the corners  like an old broom.

Indeed if you have acquired a Diploma, 1^st degree or Masters in Journalism, what Bloggers sometimes report on are irritating but then again, it would be perfect to adopt a Blogger and train him/her some basic ethics in Journalism to bring sanity to the work.

To my fellow Bloggers, ayekoo! Keep doing what you are doing best but then again, let us build our vocabularies and learn the basic ethics in Journalism.

Author: Nana Kwesi Coomson (www.233times.net)