Conference of African Journalism Educators

LANGUAGE AND PRESENTATION GAPS IN PRINT MEDIA

THE CASE OF MALAWI: POSSIBLE REMEDY AT TERTIARY LEVEL?

By Edward Chitsulo, Malawi Polytechnic, Blantyre

“Mother sleeps with 5-month-old twins in police cell.” Nation on Sunday, October 3, 2009

“He says the act by musicians to perform to standards is pure theft because they cheat both promoters and fans who might snub another show because they know that such musicians do not show up on time.” On the Arts, supplement to The Nation, June 2, 2009

“Man dumps girlfriend to marry sister.” Sunday Times, September 27, 2009

“Speculation that the monumental exploits of dancehall musician Anne Matumbi may be coming to a dead end and were shuttered last week when the often controversial artist told On the Arts that he is.” The Nation, June 2, 2009

“Wife cuts hubby’s parts.” Daily Times, September 18, 2009

“The goods included six travelling bags full of assorted clothes, eight payphones and 12 mobile phones.” The Nation, June 4, 2009

“Three people were injured in the road accident: one seriously and was given a bed at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital while the other two were treated as outpatients.” Unpublished article, Nation Publications Newsroom, July 2009

1 | P a g e INTRODUCTION

The media industry in Malawi1 has lately manifested a degree of malaise in delivery— especially in writing in English and Chichewa, the country’s official languages. While little has been done to determine the root cause and extent of the problem, most hypotheses ascribe the development to a weakened primary and secondary schools language education.

Some media practitioners and other professions also argue that tertiary/journalism training is not concentrating on the right skills, which should now include English Language Composition as a core subject. Where possible, it is felt the study of languages as a science (Linguistics) for journalists should not be an option.

So far, the net effect has been poor English, even in headlines (as indicated in the above examples) and an impression that journalists and editors are more interested in quickly ‘telling’ the story than ‘doing it well’. This working paper will, therefore, try to isolate and discuss three possible areas of concern (a poor linguistic baggage, a general ‘linguistic interference syndrome’ and lack of specialised working tools) and suggest a way forward.

POOR LINGUISTIC BAGGAGE

In the last 20 years or so, there has been a clear manifestation of general lack of an above- average linguistic baggage which is a must for media professionals. For example, in most raw and edited scripts one notices use of limited vocabulary, lack of variety in terms of choice of words or use of wrong words, among others. In several cases, one also notices a disconnection between content (what the reporter, sub-editor or even an editor wants to communicate) and what is actually on paper. When asked to ‘say’ what it is they want to ‘write’, normally the journalists ‘tell’ a different or far much better story.

Some of the factors that have contributed to this ‘linguistic shortage’ and need further research include:

1. Weak or now extinct reading programmes in primary and secondary schools.

2. The general absence of debates that used to enrich one’s vocabulary.

3. Lack of insistence that pupils speak English all the time and making default a punishable ‘offence’.

1 The Malawi media is dominated by two print houses, Nation Publications Limited (NPL) which publishes The Nation, a daily, Weekend Nation and Nation on Sunday; and Blantyre Newspapers Limited (BNL) which produces The Daily Times, Malawi News, Sunday Times and Weekend Times— the latter three being weeklies. The Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) is dominant in radio, with its two national channels. There are several privately-owned FM stations that broadcast nationwide and some community radio stations. Television Malawi (TVM) is the main TV station, with a few recently-licensed TV stations. 2 | P a g e 4. Weakened secondary school Literature—hitherto a rich ground for language acquisition. The subject was recently weakened with the reduction of compulsory titles from nine in the 70s and 80s to three and now up to four only. The situation was made worse by making the subject optional at school leaving certificate level. This decision has just been reversed.

5. The advent of television and cheap audio entertainment have also taken the student from books, magazines and other printed entertainment which were a rich field for language development.

‘LINGUISTIC INTERFERENCE SYNDROME’

The problem of lexicon confusion in operational languages (OLs), such as in the case of Malawi’s Chichewa and English plus many other indigenous languages, manifests itself in many formats (sentences, phrases or expressions). These are either unknown usages (e.g. “being given a bed in hospital) or those that convey different meanings altogether (e.g. “a mother sleeping with her five-year old twins”) from the intended messages (of news interviews or research material). One would call this a ‘Linguistic Interference Syndrome’ (LIS) which affects the Malawian (African) journalist who is multi-lingual.

For some reason, even if the journalist is sufficiently educated, something ‘genetic’ remains to disturb the practitioner’s effective writing and editing skills. This ‘gene’ or ‘block’ is what needs addressing if journalists are to effectively communicate in chosen OLs.

The key sources of the problem are, but not limited to:

1. Plurality of tongues: This challenge is mostly experienced when one migrates from mother tongue (Chichewa, Chitumbuka, Chitonga, Chisena, Chiyao, Chilhomwe, etc) to the official language (English or Chichewa). The case is worsened when one attempts to operate in the other country languages. The situation is made worse for Malawians2 who have been exposed to and speak regional languages such as Shona, Bemba, Sindebele or Kiswahili.

2. Lack of exposure to a formal linguistic sieve platform: Where one is drilled in the language nuances or how certain messages are conveyed in particular key languages; or how to avoid certain pitfalls.

2 Most Malawians in the Southern Region have been exposed to or lived in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). It is said over 30% of the Zimbabwean population is made up of various generations of Malawian migrants or those born to Malawian or a mixture of Malawian and Zimbabwean parentage. A good number of these have returned home over the years and are in active, key employment/business positions; hence, suffering the LIS. The same applies to Northerners who have strong linkages with the Kiswahili-speaking belt of East Africa, notably Tanzania, and the multiple language belt of Zambia. The North and South scenario is also, to a certain extent, applicable to the Central Region 3 | P a g e 3. The SMS culture: This one allows for general acceptance of message blocks with less regard to refinement, for example, the clinical usage of prepositions, the articles ‘a’ and ‘the’, tense or number. This emerging laxity somehow permeates into formal writing as a form of interference, keeping editors on constant guard or slipping through as errors.

GAP IN ESSENTIAL SKILLS

Because of the multiplicity of OLs on the field, certain skills are becoming critical, but not formally taught or given adequate time in training curricula, leaving the journalist at the mercy of a critical audience, a choosy business clientele or even an increasingly litigious ‘news source block’.

The following are some of the missing technical skills:

1. Translation: Because the journalist works in a multi-lingual environment, the need for formal training in this skill needs no further emphasis. In fact, most often you find that interviews are done in one language (Chichewa or Chitumbuka) but the story is published in English. The reporter, therefore, needs to ensure a correct conveyance of what sources said. In fact, this even brings in the question of how correct are quotes obtained under the translation process, given that reported speech has to reflect the actual words used by a source.

2. Grammar: This is one of the major weaknesses at the moment, given poor backgrounding in primary and secondary schools, where there are key challenges3 in learning and teaching materials or teacher training and numbers. The result is that even at university level, most students cannot sustain a good conversation in English, let alone a good piece of writing. The major symptoms of this malaise include: poor sentence construction, poor usage of prepositions, wrong choice of words, poor subject-verb agreement, mixing of tenses, lack of appreciation of the parallel structure, weak punctuation, lack of flow and coherence.

3. Newsgathering skills, for instance note-taking, listening and reading/note-making skills: Not all reporters have dictaphones or can afford the equipment; therefore, the manual taking of notes during interviews still remains a major requirement. But experience on the ground shows a significant gap in this skill given the many queries industry gets from sources on being misquoted or recorded out of context. This weakness is linked to poor listening and comprehension skills. It would appear more and more journalists have listening and comprehension problems, possibly because this skill is not getting much emphasis in secondary school and first year university

3 When Bakili Muluzi came to power in 1994, he introduced free primary education that saw pupil enrolment soar, and exerting pressure not only on classroom space but also staffing. An emergency lot of untrained teachers had to be recruited. Some were trained on the job and given block release orientation during the holidays over the years while others still await their turn. It is claimed this is the period Malawi’s education standards went down. The results are being felt now as some of the free primary school education graduates are now in tertiary institutions and newsrooms. 4 | P a g e orientation programmes as used to be the case before? Note-making or using given documentation is also becoming a challenge for some journalists, who misquote or fail to use given documents. This is partly due to failure to appreciate the structure and essentials of the given documentation—to discern the topic issues and key messages from the volumes of text and figures. Again, this is a skill that ought to be taught in language composition and summary-making classes either in school or college orientation year.

SUGGESTED WAY FORWARD

Given the light linguistic baggage that journalists are bringing with them into the newsroom today, confusion in their writing and lack of basic newsgathering operational skills, the following options may be explored for remedy or further researched by journalism training institutions:

1. University or long-term media training programmes to embrace reading projects and the study of Literature.

2. Joint curriculum reviews with media managers, Language and Literature teachers/experts ought to be established, where there are none; or enhanced, where they exist. The University of Malawi’s Polytechnic in Blantyre is on course on this aspect.4

3. Linguistics must be introduced as a core subject to allow journalists to master language as a science so that they can easily wade through and survive the plural linguistic environment they operate in and, specifically, to increase their immunity against Linguistic Interference Syndrome and enable them effectively translate their work as they migrate between languages.

4. Key skills (translation, grammar, note-taking and making, and listening skills) to be part of and given adequate time in journalism education curricula. This should be built on or extended from secondary school skills programmes.

5. Selection for training and employment has to be more stringent—seeking those strong in OLs and practical work.5

4 Several workshops with industry have been held in the last few years to address the deficiencies raised in this paper; notably, to make language teaching a core, continuous subject and emphasise practical work. The Polytechnic’s journalism training programme and that of the Continuing Education Centre (CEC) at the same institution are undergoing review with the participation of industry.

5 The Malawi School Certificate of Education and the University of Malawi entrance examinations have a large component of multiple choice questions these days, a feature that was minimal in the past. While multiple choice examining has its advantages, it has the capacity to mask or allow in students that are weak in writing— an observation that draws consensus among the educationists and media managers. To minimise the effects of the spillage, Nation Publications Limited now insists on a practical work/testing before recruitment of both interns and employees. It has also made a policy to recruit graduates (especially from journalism school at the Polytechnic) on assumption that they have the basic skills and the potential to grow into robust media 5 | P a g e 6. There is need for building alliances with school and university curricula developers to see which subjects and skills to introduce, when and for how long. This alliance needs to be all-encompassing, to include primary, secondary, university/colleges/technical schools, ministry of education officials and media managers to look at the overall education process and standards that have gone down in the last twenty years, resulting in weak manpower not only in journalism sector but also other professions.

CONCLUSION

Media training in Malawi (Africa) is slowly becoming effective through the academia-industry linkage which has, among others, agreed that Language is the weakest skill at the moment and needs attention. It has also been agreed that the practical element be emphasised as a way of preparing the graduates to the rigours of the more demanding newsroom.

practitioners managers—an experiment that is yet to yield best results. 6 | P a g e