Dear sub-editor, get it right, or get out of the newsroom

As a newspaper reporter or sub-editor, please bear in mind every minute that passes that accurate information delivered in a language that is correct, attractive and powerful is what your newspaper is in the marketplace to sell to the public. That — I daresay — is why your company has hired your sub-editorial services.

It has promoted you from the ranks of reporters and other writers because you have convinced its editorial and personnel managers  that you are capable of helping the company to sell goods that are qualitatively unsurpassed by those of any other newspaper company in the region.

UBIQUITOUS TOURISTS

It is thus that, whenever, through your own ignorance and shoddiness, your newspaper sells inaccurate information or information couched in incorrect, inferior  and unattractive language,  you are the one guilty of having caused the owners to cheat the buyers of your newspaper — namely, tens of thousands of East Africans and their visitors, the ubiquitous tourists, from all over the world.

Here is an example that occurred on page 2 of the Daily Nation on Tuesday, April 10. There, we read as follows in a caption:  “Deputy President William Ruto with Sudan’s First Vice-President and Prime Minister Bakri Saleh … and State Minister for Investment Osama Said when HE arrived in Khartoum for an official visit, yesterday…”

MAJESTIC NILE

Didn’t it baffle you? Exactly who had arrived in the Sudanese metropolis? In the linguistically sensitive reader’s mind, the quoted sentence immediately raised a question mark as ugly as Medusa’s face — namely: Who was the “HE” that had “arrived” in the Sudanese metropolis? In other words, to whom was the pronoun “he” referring in that construction? Put still another way, exactly who had “arrived” in the Sudanese capital city that sprawls along the majestic Nile?

Indeed, in the above construction, to whom was the pronoun he referring? Was it to Mr Ruto or was it to Mr Saleh? In terms of correct English grammar, was it the Kenyan official or was it his Sudanese counterpart and visitor? From the newspaper’s way of putting it, the reader just cannot tell. In short, some reporter it is who has completely failed as a public information official.

COMPLETELY FAILED

It might help a great deal if, as a sub-editor, you bear in mind all the time that accurate information beautifully constructed is what your newspaper is in the marketplace to sell and that it is from such sales that you derive your own income. That was the question that the sub-editor who handled the above story raised when he or she wrote that extremely unfortunate headline.

He or she either does not know or had quite forgotten the source of the bread that keeps him or her and his or her family alive. The writer of that caption completely failed, not only his or her company, but also the whole journalistic profession. The latter, indeed, is why, in the court of language justice, even I (a retired newspaper editor) have a case against him or her.

Philip Ochieng is a retired journalist. [email protected]