Remember the forgotten tribe

Stephen Mpofu, Perspective
It is small but walks tall and, to be sure, without this tribe of professionals no society anywhere around the globe would tick politically, socially, and economically.

Which suggests that those in power and the people they lead would metaphorically be engaged in a dialogue of the deaf mute without the presence of this indefatigable group of human beings.

We are talking here about print and electronic/radio journalists — a dual carriage way for information between those hoisted in the echelons of power by the masses through elections on the one hand and the voters/ electorate on the other.

But what do we see happening to this small often selfless tribe of workers when it comes to matters of life and death, with the current Covid-19 world pandemic in purview?

Countries which have already been distributing vaccines to inoculate people against Covid-19 have been prioritising health workers among other people dealing directly with the public but leaving out journalists who should as a matter of fact be regarded as frontline workers for their role in raising public awareness in all matters of life and death, not being mentioned anywhere near the shadows of “frontline workers” given first preference for inoculation.

What a tragic irony the omission of the scribes as frontline workers represents, or are the countries replicating World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines merely following what that body’s representatives stipulated with journalists not being regarded as being in the frontline of curbing the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic?

But surely, surely the WHO, of all those concerned in the matter of life and death in question, ought to be the first to know that without journalists, broadcast or print, whatever information which that organisation wished to reach out to everyone around the globe, would actually have remained incommunicado so that the rest of the world would continue to wallow in darkness about what measures to take against Covid-19 considering the selflessness and devotion of journalists as a dual carriageway of the information traffic between policy-makers and policy-overseers at various levels of communication on the one hand and consumers of that information on the other regarding the coronavirus pandemic in point here, this communicologist feels as no doubt do fellow scribes, that treating our generally patriotic tribe — notwithstanding a few masquerades who must be dismissed as nonentities — is an unfortunate anomaly that state governments working with the WHO in fighting the current and any future health threat or threats to humanity must correct.

The thesis of the above discourse, as motivated by this citizen with ink running in his blood, is that those put in charge of information ministries across the African continent have an obligation to ensure that journalists are also always regarded as frontline workers so that at no time whatsoever they are not made to appear or feel as though they are Cinderellas or afterthoughts in societies that they serve around the clock by day and by night as such treatment might demotivate them and turn some of them into flies in the milk.

In fact, to catalyse the noble contributions of these selfless professionals, often both liked and hated by some in the echelons of power, lucrative conditions of service matching or even surpassing those given to some political civil servants, who may not be just as patriotic, to motivate the scribes on our continent to do their very best in promoting national unity, amity and unimpeded national development into a brave new future for all.