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Garikai Mazara
IT is always wrong to start an argument on the defensive, but I will allow the gentle reader to bear with me, for I am writing, rather arguing, out of passion and not malice and am not driven by no other motive than a love for my profession — and my job.Last Friday, Geoff Nyarota made an argument, which when loosely read, can be interpreted to mean that journalism has gone to the dogs.
That would be an extreme interpretation, an extreme reading of his argument, but to put it mildly, there has to be cause for concern as to the direction journalism has taken or is taking.
Nyarota was arguing using his personal experiences, and some might have dismissed his argument as someone seeking relevance and/or the limelight, something which every other journalist can be guilty of, hence that yearning for a name, called byline in journalism lingo, at the beginning of every story.
Thus, to make my argument, I will use my personal experience(s) to make my argument, hollow some might find it to be. To me journalism is my chosen profession and at my age it might not be feasible and might not make sense to change professions, to become a teacher or a nurse or a lawyer.
Maybe, maybe not. But from how I love the job and how I am at home writing, I bet I am going to type my fingers sore on the keyboard, till death do us part. In short, journalism is my first love and will remain so.
If it wasn’t my first love, or if I didn’t care about it and didn’t mind developments within the industry, I wouldn’t have bothered, wouldn’t have minded but journalism, the very profession that I so love, is being trampled upon, is being used to settle personal scores and issues and it is no longer the profession that we looked up to when we were growing up.
And the more we keep quiet about it, the more we are guilty, not by commission but by omission. Looks like I am going round and round in circles. The Zimbabwe Union of Journalists organised National Journalistic and Media Awards (Njama) are my bone of contention.
That the list of finalists has nominees from Zimpapers or this or that stable is neither here nor there, the bottom line is, are we having the best journalists up for the various awards?
Are the awards pushing journalism to new frontiers, are they being an avenue for improving content and quality or they are a negation of that? I would want to think that the awards, in their present form and state, are not helping in any way to foster growth and development of the profession.
This is not, any away, if I may reiterate, an affront to anyone, this is not an attack on any person or nominee on the list, but rather on the process and awards, which I feel need to be revamped or re-looked at, if my loved profession is to scale to new heights.
For starters, entries closed on a Friday, September 27, and by Wednesday — which is five days — notices were being sent out that the short list of nominees was ready for revealing. That for 18 categories! With each entry allowed a maximum of three stories, one gets a rough estimate of the amount of entries that the judges had to contend with, that is if any judging was done.
If it takes five days to judge a year’s work — by a whole profession — it leaves one with a nagging question if the nominees were not pre-determined.
Some journalists, and it is my sincere hope that they are not in the majority, have not bothered to be part of the ZUJ charade over the years, because ZUJ in itself has lost credibility, first over the manner in which it convenes its elective congress, which in itself has left many wondering if the elections are well-meaning.
With a disputed executive in charge, it has always been a challenge for that executive to run its annual awards ceremony, and each passing year they have been accused of buying their stay in office, and reason which might explain the spread of the awards to almost every newsroom, irrespective of quality and content.
We have left the charade to run for all these years but as we are now entering a new phase of life, a reinvigorated beginning, as espoused by Zanu-PF’s emphatic victory in the July harmonised elections, and I think it is time to right all wrongs and we cannot be watchers as ZUJ messes (for want of a respectable description) around with our profession.
The awards are meant to reward excellence and they should remain thus, they should not be an extension used by someone to continue in office, they should not be a passport for someone’s continued stay in office.
Once we use the awards as such, we are killing a profession, we are letting a profession die and history will judge us harshly as spectators who let a profession swim into oblivion, thanks to a few self-serving individuals.
Granted, Nyarota might be right in his submission that some of today’s writings are dull and pedestrian and it gets more worrying when those who write as such are rewarded and paraded before the world as the country’s best journalists.
It becomes a circus, a scandal. As much as journalism might be getting shoddy, the best way to revive it would be to reward those who are helping it stay afloat, of the shoddy lot, the few who are still respectable.
But when we reward the mediocre because there is someone out to stay in office for as long as possible, then we are killing a profession.
But then, as much as the ZUJ executive is guilty, the judges are equally culpable, and to an extent the sponsors, for they are being associated with a sham awards ceremony.
When we were growing up, when the finalists and eventual winners were announced it didn’t need any convincing, that they, indeed, deserved the accolades. They were natural winners.
Not really sure if those who will receive the awards on Friday will have a good night’s sleep and celebrate the whole of the coming year, that they were the best journalism in the country has to offer.
Things have to change, perceptions of the profession have to change. Some will argue sour grapes but the truth is always hard to swallow, let alone say.
Online Reporter