My dear Uncle Charly, is this all about Journalism? (I)

The debate over media self-regulation enters higher pitch. It all began here then we got here 

By Franklin Sone Bayen

Franklin Sone Bayen

I did not do so badly in Literary Appreciation in high school. From a time in Forms 3 and 4 in GHS Limbe when my essays were read to the class by the English tutor, my mates in GHS Nguti were referred to my Literary Appreciation scripts by the tutor. Yet, one thing I got to notice in Literary Appreciation is, authors sometimes write their stuff and mean a simple thing, but some grandstanding literary critics give it all kinds of interpretations under the sun, in all directions. The poor author may have written in simple English, but the critics who sometimes only understand and use Shakespearean craft, begin by misunderstanding the writer because their reasoning faculty is perhaps too advanced – more advanced than the author’s – and proceed to confuse readers who would better have been left to manage with the author’s original modest stuff. So good for the accolades won by grandstanding literary critics; too bad for the writers who often get misrepresented.
I can afford this rigmarole here only because I know this script won’t pass through the desk of my former Editor at The Herald, Dr. Boniface “Bob” Forbin. He would make me rewrite this until he was satisfied it was simple enough and straight to the point to be understood without effort by readers who only want to be informed and clarified, not to be impressed or confused, nor are they supposed to strain to understand newspaper stuff as if they would be sitting an exam on it.
In Forbin’s “school” of writing, clarity (“clear thoughts” as he would often say) is the thumb rule; no room for unnecessary colour and grandstanding. Well sourced information is the substance. Let the reader be edified and educated, not impressed and confused. When Forbin taught journalism in Lagos, a handful of our senior colleagues were his students. I do not know if any of them was his best student. With Forbin, make the point and make it understood in news writing as in analysis, opinion, commentary or even editorial writing. I had the privilege of writing some under his supervision: “small editorials” – The Observer column.
Clarity in writing is the basic we learn in Journalism school, especially when one is privileged to have had news writing teachers like Asonglefac Nkemleke and Dr. George Ngwa in Journalism and Mass Communication (JMC), University of Buea (both former Radio Cameroon Editors-in-Chief) or Eddia Soter (RIP), Dr. Paul Celestin Ndembiyembe (both from Cameroon Tribune) and Professor Chinji Kouleu, among others at the Advanced School of Mass Communication (ASMAC). Yet, we often forget and get carried away by grandeur and public accolades when readers mistake us for Rambo writers instead of information facilitators.
When those accolades go into our head and solidify over time, through the length of our “rich” career, Rambo writing becomes a professional bad habit. We become mere animators of the gallery and a distraction and confusion to kids in Journalism school looking up to us as role models. We fail in our primary mission to help the public understand the complex issues in the news – our primary mission. Well, until we go through the grilling of a rigorous and purposeful Editor like Bob Forbin and have the privilege of taking courses in writing for clarity at a sound journalism centre like the prestigious Poynter Institute in Florida as I did in 2006.
Back home, many years after moving on from The Herald as a Reporter and Editor and honing my trade elsewhere, I was recalled by Forbin to write “small editorials” for The Herald, part-time. From a time when he performed the feat of writing three acclaimed Editorials a week for his tri-weekly leading newspaper, he had resolved to slow down, do just one a week (in the Wednesday edition) and leave Mondays for a new column Scorecard (commentaries on personalities with a score on their performance by Douglas Achingale) and Fridays for The Observer (four small editorials in the same page, on burning issues of the week by yours truly).
If it was an honour writing Editorials (albeit small ones) at the side of the great Bob Forbin, it was even more a mighty privilege to have done so under his scrutiny. My apologies to Forbin for what in my writing fails to reflect his fine grooming, but the lessons continue to fine tune in my head and in good time, I shall get there and he’ll know the effort is not wasted; not when I was a close collaborator reporting and editing, not through his coaching on Editorial writing, not after our occasional conversations when I stop by at his office to this day, to source from his rich oral library.
Thanks to some of my Herald articles and Letters of Recommendation by Charly Ndi Chia, my former Editor at Cameroon Post/The Post and Chief Bisong Etahoben of Weekly Post where I was also once Editor, I won a fellowship with the Alfred Friendly Press Partners in the United States in 2006 where I worked at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (some of my articles are still on their website: www.seattlepi.com). The Friendly fellowship was not a friendly offer; I competed with candidates from all over the world. Under the same programme, I trained at Poynter and in my own time, did a stint at the headquarters of the Voice of America (VOA) in Washington following my previous collaboration with them from Yaounde.

Charlie Ndi Chia

That international page of my career includes reporting simultaneously or in turns from 2002 (some 12 years now!) for Radio Vatican, Radio France International (RFI), and collaborating with the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and the German News Agency (Deusche Press Agentur). In my writing and reporting, even on complex issues, including when I wrote an opinion to The Jerusalem Post on a Mashav visit in Israel in 2005, I bear in mind Forbin’s warning that good, meaningful writing cannot come out of an empty head. He calls it feeding the brain and far from just classroom performance that to him are only worth your output, feeding the brain to him takes sustained reading and understanding of quality and topical books. It also takes being keen on current events: reading quality newspapers and magazines, listening to informative and quality radio programmes and watching TV, but above all being analytic in your views, not just brash and talkative.
My brand of journalism on the field and in newsrooms, often appreciated by my former Editors at The Post Charly Ndi Chia and Francis Wache, was to not rest until I had dug down to the last authentic testimony from a credible source because, reporting rumour is like returning to the public what they give to us. I was sharing this with a young reporter of The Post only a couple of weeks ago. I bear this in mind, conscious that like my mentor of another time Charly Ndi Chia says in his article, “NCC SAGA: The Forgotten Cobweb Under An Abandoned Chair” (page 4, The Post, Monday, January 20, 2014), “ ‘mistakes’… of the Journalist hang on, glaring and mocking at the rest of us, for ages to come.” Especially so when they are sourced as reliable information for history books tomorrow, as Professor Victor Julius Ngoh lamented the other day on CRTV’s Press Hour.
That makes newspapers mean to historians what the Bible means to pastors – the reference book. That means there is no room for false prophets, merchants of miracles or the equivalent of pastors on latter day sale of indulgences which Rev. Fr. Martin Luther protested against back in the 16^th Century. This means “Journalists Iscariot” (dixit Charly Ndi Chia), who blackmail and convince public personalities that they can unmake or make them on a fee, especially in view of imminent appointments, inject false information into records that will eventually distort history. What sacrilege!
And when Martin Luther wrote the 95 points, the old guard in Rome, if they had any good sense, would have introspected and self-regulated. Instead they castigated, blacklisted and excommunicated Martin Luther. He carried on though. And what would Christianity be today had the old guard succeeded to hush the young, 34-year-old Luther? After all, he was not the Pope and there were prelates around born decades before him.
Which is why I wrote my (open) letter to NCC and Ngah Christian to chastise those who from the top as from the bottom are compromising the honourability, beauty and decorum of our cherished profession. In my few travels abroad, I have seen best practice. If I do not know how it should be done, I at least can tell how it should not be done. I feel so attached to self-regulation because though it has lagged so long to take its full dimension in our country, I have had instructive brushes with it and have continued researching on it.
When the Cameroon Union of Journalists (CUJ) first experimented it, I was among half a dozen young journalists with my colleague of Radio Siantou in Yaounde, Jean Claude Mvondo and Abel Kome Epule, Besala (RIP) and three others from MINCOM then, selected in mid-2000 as media monitors. We met three days a week at the CUJ office at Rue Ceper to read the papers and take notes for the attention of the Ethics Committee under Antoine Marie Ngono. They, as a Tribunal of Honour, were expected to deliberate on the attitude of the Press and publish periodic reports designed to salute those respecting the norms and name and shame those missing the point or misbehaving.
In 2003, I took part in a workshop at the Mont Febe Monastery when the Canadian media group Reseau Liberté through Canadian Cooperation, trained CUJ members towards setting up a veritable self-regulation organ. The Cameroon Media Council created for the purpose died on arrival. In 2010, I met Charly Ndi Chia (CUJ president) on CRTV Buea’s Press Club and, on-mic, I reminded him about CUJ’s failure to make that noble operation kick off, which is why we have NCC, in its present form, in its place today. Meanwhile, I had in 2009 submitted a proposal for self-regulation to CAMASEJ where I am an executive member.
As a journalism student on internship in 1996, I took active part in the constitutive assembly of CUJ at the Yaounde Hilton. I was not sent nor led there. Nor did not I just sit through, marveling at the great senior colleagues in the hall. I went on my own, drawn by interest and during the adoption of the constitution and by-laws, I raised an objection against a proposal that lumped journalists trained in UB (like me then) together with those holding degrees other than in Journalism, who would be admitted into the corps after up to two years on the job, while journalists trained in ASMAC (my future school) would be admitted into the corps after just six months of practice.
My objection was upheld and the tutelage period for UB-trained journalists brought down to one year. Pa Kome Epule and Nfon Epie (RIP) were on the panel that ran that constitutive assembly. Some of my senior colleagues may be surprised at both my early involvement and engagement because they were at the fringes or in limbo while I played at the centre-stage. Had some of them been there that day, they might have hushed me for speaking what I know nothing about in the midst of elders.