“When was the last time you watched television?,” Israel Laryea, a broadcast journalist, recently asked.
Only a few years ago, a journalist was a microphone-wielding person who could tell a good story with the inverted pyramid style or the hourglass format.
He wore a press jacket and looked bookish, or at least, not too funky.
Today, it doesn’t matter if you do not know your 5Ws and the H. One emoji or viral video would tell a more popular story.
It is immediate, colourful, and garners more readership. No editors, no sub-editors, no copy-tasters.
In the process, we seem to have replaced the journalist with a thumbnail.
Catch up or die
Mr. Laryea, we have noticed, has been off the television screens for a while. He says he is ‘cooking’ something big and has teased us to check his social media pages.
That is where the news is generated these days, and anybody with a smartphone can anchor the news or deliver a news commentary.
You do not need breaking news or a trained broadcasting voice; a tomato moment is enough.
Ohene Kwame Frimpong, MP for Asante Akyem North, seized such a tomato moment when a video of him went viral.
In the footage, the legislator was seen marketing the produce of poor tomato farmers in his constituency, pitching to the presidency.
The presidency has reportedly responded, directing government schools to patronise local farmers for food items to feed SHS boarding students.
That is the power of social media. Instant results. Instant reviews. Instant feedback.
Years ago, we celebrated with jingles when radio produced results.
We chose our best in the game to do the toast. Komla Dumor was great at this, yelling from the consoles at Joy FM in his baritone and arresting voice when a journalist made a big scoop.
Today, journalism is anything that attracts more views, likes, and comments on social media.
The traditional media practitioner has to play ‘catch-up’, adapt, and digitise, to keep up with the trends and remain relevant. Newspapers have folded up, leaving the once-busy newsstands desolate, as sales continue to tank.
Sexy intellectuals
It costs a lot to produce news. From deciding the lead (lede), to arriving at the kicker (the final line of a story), the process of writing a news story is particularly laborious.
It is usual practice for your editor to send you back to rewrite an entire story, get the right quotes or cough back an earlier version of a report he sent to the dustbin.
That is the first hurdle to jump. You must survive the strict check regimen.
Your report is checked against the facts, rechecked and double checked before the editor stamps his seal of approval.
You wait in the corridors for feedback after the story is published. For radio and television, the checks are punishing and unforgiving.
You are summoned before a panel of angry editors when you mispronounce a word, blink needlessly, or sound tired on air.
This is what a typical news report goes through before it hits the television screens or appears in the newspapers.
The MP got quicker results for his tomatoes by simply posing beside farmers to record his conversation.
All he needed was a smartphone and GH₵2 voucher.
No rehearsals. No retakes. No press conference.
No media buying.
Yet the footage had a bigger national attention than the aggregate coverage of all our newspapers, radio frequencies and television stations.
Like me, many editors and lovers of traditional media have conveniently avoided the question: do people still read newspapers these days?
We have comforted ourselves that men of letters, the intellectually curious who love to maintain their place in the community of the learned, will read our newspapers.
We are also not unaware that the community is gradually vanishing.
These days, an intellectual is not the deep-thinking nerd who proposes fresh ideas; an intellectual is the person who has discovered a new sex position or a herbal concoction better than viagra.
Articles and listicles
So, we are compelled to make our reports sexy and less tasking for an image-flipping generation who do not read beyond the headline.
Accordingly, we have favoured ‘listicles’ (articles written in the form of a list) instead of long articles that treat hard content. Newspapers and TV stations are loading more content on their websites and on social media, where readership can be measured in views and comments.
Indeed, some newspapers have collapsed the hard newsprint and migrated online.
However, the traditional content still contends for patronage in the blogosphere.
The last time I pitched for a spot on Kwaku Sakyi-Addo’s website, the celebrated newsman issued a caveat: please limit your articles to only one page.
We have to adapt. Decidedly. But at a huge cost.
We share our stories on innumerable digital platforms, including WhatsApp groups, but our friends prefer the diatribe from Afia Schwarzenegger and Kevin Taylor to Sampson Anyenini’s Newsfile, or Bernard Avle’s Point of View.
The game has changed. So are the rewards.
The biggest YouTuber deserves a diplomatic passport to sell our story better.
For the GJA journalist of the year, a handshake from a deputy minister may be enough.
A content creator with a million views becomes an influencer and rakes in millions.
That is the new media, and it is sexy enough for our purposes.
Will social media rule forever?
Apostles of traditional media are looking forward to a return to the Age of Renaissance, where vigorous intellectual activity and classical ideals would be fostered.
Even in this vain age of social media, people are quick to spot good writing, and they take time to read the issues where they see the tissues.
Tissues Of The Issues
bigfrontiers@gmail.com
Ottawa, Ontario
