The goofs, in spite of computer-aided reporting

The computer has revolutionised everything about journalism from news gathering through writing to editing and the final product in the consumer’s hand. That bears repeating. When I look back to the days we struggled to get and process our information, it amazes me that we survived and made, despite our monumental technological deprivations, a fairly good show of reporting, editing, proof reading and publishing. Totally unaided by technology.

Not even the tape recorder was available to us. We used note books called reporter’s note books. A marketing gimmick, I think. As your interviewee rattled on, you half-listened to him as you furiously took down what he said in case the story was published and, feeling embarrassed by what he said, grandly denied it. Your note book was your only witness against him. Then the tape recorder came and relieved us somewhat of the fear of denials by our news sources. It gradually became an important presence in the newsroom. You went nowhere without it.

We had few telephone land lines in a few towns serving an unimaginable number of people. Every call had to go through the P&T. They did not always work either, thus leaving reporters stranded with their handwritten stories riddled with crossed off lines showing some gallant attempts at self-editing. We phoned in our stories to the newsroom from wherever we were sent to cover a story. It was pure torture, particularly given our linguistic peculiarities brought to bear on the English language, as in ‘r’ for ‘l’ and vice versa. If the story taker in the newsroom did not understand your pronunciation, he simply added what he believed you said.

If you think this is the lamentation of an old man who thinks that he and his contemporaries arrived on the scene too early to be computer-aided reporters, you would be right. When I see the ease with which everything is done today in the newsroom, I cannot but fail to keep my eyes from turning green, as in pure but moderated envy. I think the inventors who made the computer and the magic of the word processor possible were unfriendly men who made us the stepping stones to the computer-aided new journalism world. They are because we were.

The word processor is the reporter’s delight. Using it is a breeze. The difference between the lap top and the manual typewriter is clear. Typing your story on the manual typewriter made your fingers sore; your back ached; your neck ached and if you stood up from the desk, your legs behaved as if they were serving notice to give way under you.

The word processor is so good it saves you the headache of checking your spelling. As you write, the spell checker flags errors and offers you suggestions. If you write Jakande, the spell checker authoritatively promptly asks you to replace it with the correct word, jocular. The word processor is omniscient but it has never heard of the beloved former action governor of Lagos State, Alhaji Lateef Jakande. Unpardonable ignorance.

In our time, there was no chance of this happening and embarrassing important people. We reached for Michael West for the correct spelling of words. We usually got them right there and as a bonus, the correct pronunciation of the words.

Funny, though, that man makes no progress without a downside of some sort to it. Since we are not perfect, it would be stretching it to expect our inventions to be perfect. So, pardon me, but I regret to say that the word processor is not a perfect aid in the service of modern reporters, lucky to have it though they are. I often tell this generation of computer brought up reporters that as great and as handy as the word processor is, it is still only an aid to the grey matter housed in the human skull. That is still where the reporter arranges his story before hitting the computer keyboard. When he looks up at the ceiling, his inspiration does not come from the ceiling but from the grey matter put there by you-know-who.

Were it not so, today’s newspapers would be perfect – perfect reporting, perfect headlines, perfect spellings, perfect syntax, perfect sub-editing and perfect page planning. I give you some instances to show that the combination of man and technology has not made us perfect human beings. All the examples, as usual, come from the Daily Trust titles.

On page 28 of the Daily Trust of April 24, we found this headline: He has strangled me severally. Please separate us, woman tells court.

You may find it difficult to believe that a woman strangled several times is alive to tell her story. Not that strange, perhaps, because Mrs Patience Jonathan once died for seven days and lived to tell her story too. Two goofs here. One, a woman can survive several attempts to strangle her but she can be strangled only once – and never live to tell the story. The word severally is often misused to mean several times. Not so. Severally means something done separately or individually, one by one; not many times.

On page 29, we found this: Court orders man to cut grass for 7 days for abusing judge.

The same story appeared on page 26 with this headline: Court orders businessman to cut grass for 7 days.

The repeated story is quite common in the newspapers these days. This is a goof beyond the ken of the word processor. It means one sub-editor or page planner does not know what the other is doing. I need to point out two errors here. In Nigerian English, abuse is commonly used as a synonym for insult. Abuse means misuse, as in drug abuse. The businessman insulted the judged. He did not abuse him. On page 6 of the issue of April 13, we find the correct use of abuse: Stop abusing oversight functions for personal gains.

I suggest we let the word remain in the realm of colloquial English – if we can. The rule of headline-writing is that numbers from one to ten be spelt out. Numbers above ten are used in figures. Newspapers tend to be flexible about this, often for reasons of space. Not a serious goof though because the rule is now generally observed in the breach.

On page 14 of April 13 issue, we found this headline: Miners dread clampdown, trudge out of Zamfara site. Miners are usually bone-weary, what with all that digging in search of precious minerals. But what those men did was to leave or escape from their mining sites; not trudge. Trudge is descriptive and more appropriate for a photo caption. It would have been nice to see the photograph of the weary men trudging out of the site.

See if you can make some sense of this headline found on page 43 of the same issue: Winners, losers of 2019 and a phone call. I confess I could not make sense of it.

Here is another headline goof on page 45: Borno’s pvc pipe factory set to commence take-off. The word commence is redundant. Correct: Borno’s pvc factory set to (or for) take-off.

A story on page 3 of the issue of April 18 had this headline: Kidnappers using police form get N5m fine.

Here is the intro to the story. Read it and see if the headline is correct: The senate yesterday passed a bill that imposed a fine of N5m or two years imprisonment for individuals who use police uniforms to commit crimes such as kidnapping.

The headline and the story itself tell different stories. The headline suggests that some kidnappers arrested in police uniform had been convicted and fined N5m by a judge. But according to the story, it was only a bill passed by the senate that stipulates the fine. Totally misleading. I rate it as the worst goof in April.

My choice of the most imaginative headline in the newspaper in April? Here it is on page 25 of the April 18 issue: Acute water shortage drying Katsina residents’ throats, pockets.

(To be concluded)