Introduction
The old adage that a journalist is born and not made appears to have continued to gain currency in the Sierra Leone media, despite attempts to improve professionalism in the field through training. This is unfortunate, writes Bernadette Cole. Sound education and training is essential for professional, responsible journalism.
Before independence (in 1961) and the years immediately after, it was unthinkable for a young school leaver or a school drop out to become editor overnight. People interested in journalism went through a period of apprenticeship, that saw them through positions like cub reporters, reporters, sub-editors, desk editors and editors progressively. These positions exposed the young journalist to years of on-the –job training which prepared him for a professional career in the print media. The same was also true for careers in broadcasting which was centred around the country’s’ only broadcasting station, The Sierra Leone Broadcasting Service. Several young broadcasters with proven aptitude for careers in broadcasting were not only trained on the job, but were also sent to broadcasting houses such as the BBC, Radio Deutche Welle and Radio Netherlands, among others, for training (Cole, 1995).
As the economic situation degenerated after the hosting of the OAU in 1980, followed by the civil war in the 1990s, many of the country’s finest journalists that had gone through training left for more lucrative jobs overseas or for other employment within the country (Cole, ibid). This exodus of journalists, in addition to the unprecedented media pluralism witnessed by the country following the liberation of the media after the return to democracy in 1996, created a vacuum that has been very difficult to fill. From a total of six newspapers in the country in 1996, the number of newspapers registered with the Independent Media Commission (IMC) stood at 53 in December 2006. From one short wave broadcasting station (the SLBS), one FM station in Freetown (FM 94) and another in Bo, (Kiss 104), a total of 40 radio stations currently exist in the country.
This piece of work attempts to examine training as a tool for the development of the Sierra Leone media. It will discuss the importance of mass media and the role of the journalist; it will look at various types of training including on the job, vocational training and university training and examine what is available in the country. It will proffer some suggestions and recommendations to improve professionalism through training of the country’s media practitioners.
The importance of mass communication in today’s world
The concept of mass communication as the sine qua non for the sustenance of participatory democracy and the driving force for development cannot be overemphasised. Today, the mass media is held up world wide as one of the democratic structures of governance and a strong pillar for the sustenance of accountability. The media is expected to mobilise, assess and represent public opinion. It is regarded as the most suitable mechanism to serve as a watchdog to monitor and evaluate the government’s performance before the bar of public opinion and hold it accountable to the populace. It is required to play its traditional role of digging out and publishing information that is accurate, present it as dispassionately and objectively as possible and interpret it without bias. Reasonable opportunity must be given for reply to those who are attacked or criticised. Publishing corrections promptly and prominently when mistakes are made is also a prerequisite (Blaye-amihere, 2000).
In these days of globalisation, the media is also expected to report, analyse, comment on and adequately interprets global issues including world trade, international relations, environment trends, world politics, global economies, development issues and conflict, among others to facilitate understanding of how these issues impact on people’s lives.
Mass Communication denotes the means of communication such as television, radio, newspapers, magazines and internet websites that reach large numbers of people (Nicholas and Price, 1998). Digital technologies, the basis of today’s communication system represents the convergence of all forms of content ( text, images, audio, video and other animation) into a form that is easily manipulated by computers (Rothwell, 2000). Digitalisation has permitted extensive merging of communication technologies, unlike the analog system with its old fashioned technologies which included the turn table and needle to produce sound. The digital world of computers has merged with virtually all communication technologies and has created a far different world of communication than existed just two decades ago.
This concept of the importance and role of the media places great responsibility on journalists. If they are to perform their role adequately, they must have an appreciable level of education and training. As far back as 1980, the MacBride Commission of UNESCO stressed the importance of communication training in these words:
In view of the acute shortage of adequately trained personnel in many developing countries, the question of building up manpower resources in the communication sector must remain a priority concern of policy makers and planners (MacBride 1980:232)
The importance of training was buttressed by Kamps (2004) who stressed the need for training that “would aggressively incorporate the ‘real world’ and the new technologies that were changing how journalists work”.
When one considers that in any facet of the world of work, be it trade, profession or vocation, training is necessary to master the skills and art of the job, it seems foolhardy for one to believe that journalism, whether considered as a trade or profession does not necessarily need training. One can draw a parallel between the untrained journalist and an untrained driver who, on sitting behind the steering wheel, does not observe the road signs, because he is not even aware of their existence, or if he does, is ignorant of what they mean. He steers the vehicle in all directions, causing chaos and mayhem as well as accidents that may cause injury to other motorists and pedestrians, and may end up crashing and sustaining serious injuries that may be fatal.
Training opportunities in Mass Communication
There are several training routes in mass communication. These include on the job training, vocational training and university training. The profession attracts people of various backgrounds but there are certain traits that are necessary for one to succeed. Hodgson (2000) suggests that a journalist must be curious about the world; he must be interested in the workings of institutions and the law; he must have the historian’s flair for analysis of motives and events; he must be conscious not only of news, but of the context in which it happens; he must have a creative urge, gregarious by habit and interested in people. Peter Lardner, a journalist in Vancouver is quoted by Astifan (2003) to have proposed that being a good journalist involves “a level of understanding, an ability to interview well, some determination of persistence and a good grasp of the language”.
Whatever the attributes, however, it must be acknowledged that the skills in mass communication are varied and need to be learned systematically. Some of the training opportunities in mass communication are as follows:
On-the-job training
Up until the middle of the twentieth century, a good deal of training for the print and broadcast media world-wide took place while serving on the job. Structured training arrangements were made for employees as they rose progressively from one position to the next. In Sierra Leone, journalists employed by newspapers underwent several years of apprenticeship. They covered several beats including the courts, parliament, hospitals, the government ministries and departments and the police as ‘generalists’. “Sometimes, after a few years training, a journalist might emerge as specialist in a particular area of reporting and we assigned him to that beat as a specialist writer” (Metzger, 2006).
In the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting where many Sierra Leonean journalists made their debut, structured training programmes were organised for staff. Trainers from Britain were brought in from time to time. The same system was followed in the country’s only broadcasting station during those years, i.e. the SLBS, where the position of Training Officer was created as a senior post in the establishment. In both departments, staff training and development included periods of attachment to newspapers and broadcasting stations overseas.
After years of stagnation in the area of training, the SLBS recently rejuvenated its staff training and development programme to train staff on the job. The Government Information Service has also followed suit.
A few newspapers have some semblance of on the job training but this is not as structured as training programmes carried out by newspapers in past years.
Following the proliferation of radio stations, in particular community radio throughout the country, structured training programmes are being organised from time to time. Most of the community radio stations were established through donor support and the current training programmes are geared towards making them self reliant to ensure continuity at the end of the funding period. The trainings are being funded by three main organisations: the Dakar-based Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) through its local coo-coordinating body, Community Radio Network (CORNET), the Radio Netherlands Training Centre (RNTC) through the Initiative for the Mobile Training of Community Radio (INFORMOTRAC) - a local NGO set up by RNTC specifically for the training of community radio animators, Fondation Hirondelle and the BBC. The training programmes comprise radio station management, elections coverage, programme development, production and presentation, resource management and fund-raising.
Vocational Training
Another aspect of training for mass media is vocational training. In some countries, this type of training are established as the forerunner of university training. For example in 1952, some newspapers in Britain came together and set up the National Council for the training of journalists. The Council is funded through capital payments from member newspapers. It runs courses which lead to examinations and the award of the National Certificate in Journalism to successful candidates. According to Hodgson (op. cit), the National Certificate is regarded as one credit towards a degree.
Another example of vocational training in mass communication is the Ghana Institute of Journalism set up in 1958 by Kwame Nkruma, the first Prime Minister of Ghana. The objective was to train journalists from all over Africa in the wake of Nkruma’s Pan-Africanism. Blaye-Amihere (op.cit.) describes the GIJ as “an institution with great reputation particularly in Nigeria, where its certificate was highly respected before the advent of journalism schools in Nigerian universities”.
In Sierra Leone, the first institution to set up a vocational type training in media was the Extra Mural Department of Fourah Bay College. Established in the 1960s, the programme offered short courses in the broadcast and print media leading to the Certificate in Journalism, but this was short-lived.
C-Met, the Centre for Media, Education and Technology was founded in June 2000 to train practising journalists, especially those who have not had any formal professional training. It also trains youth broadcasters between the ages of 11 and 20. Of special significance is its training in film production, using Avid and cut pro techniques. According to the Director, Mr. David Tam Baryoh, four films on Sierra Leone have so far been produced.
The Fatima Institute in Makeni, northern province established a communication department in 2005 to train media practitioners in key communication techniques to enhance sustainable development in the day to day activities of the country. It runs the two-year diploma and one-year certificate programmes respectively, with emphasis on development communication.
The Northern Polytechnic in Makeni runs a two-year course called “community journalism”. It was established in 2005 as a distance learning programme. The first year is the certificate level and upon successful completion of this course, permission may be granted for progression to the diploma programme. Students are awarded the National Council for Technical, Vocational and other academic awards (NCTVA) in Community Journalism on successful completion of the courses. The Certificate programme offers courses in Communication Skills, Research, Sociology, Broadcast Journalism and Information Technology. For the diploma programme, the modules offered include Newspaper reporting, Media Law and Ethics, Sub-editing, Feature Writing and Human Rights Education.
Other Vocational institutions that offer training in Media Studies in Sierra Leone include the Milton Margai College of Education, Sir Wilson Churchill Institute of Management, the College of Business Studies and the Institute of Business Studies and Administration.
University Training
Universities in the United States of America are often credited with having blazed the trail in the introduction of programmes leading to undergraduate and graduate degrees in mass communication. The most notable among them are Harvard, Columbia, Indiana, Syracuse and Yale Universities. In Britain, the first University to establish degree programmes in journalism was the University of Wales, Cardiff. Other universities of note that have followed suit in Britain include Birmingham, Leicester, Leeds, Sheffield, London, Strathclyde and Lancashire Universities.
Several universities in Africa including Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa, Cameroon, Uganda and Kenya have established mass communication studies at the undergraduate and graduate levels. The most notable university based mass communication training in Ghana is at Legon University.
In Sierra Leone, Fourah Bay College, one of the constituent colleges of the University of Sierra Leone established journalism training in 1993 at the Certificate level. The aim was to give an opportunity to media practitioners who may not have the normal entrance requirement to university to undertake training. The one year certificate programme was upgraded to the diploma level in 1995 and given the demand for journalism training by young school leavers with the normal university entry requirements; the programme was upgraded to the degree level in 2002. The first set of graduates to pursue the one-year Postgraduate Diploma n Mass Communication was admitted in 2003. Among courses offered are Communication Skills, Speech and Public Speaking, Intellectual Property Rights, African Communication Systems, Investigative Reporting, Print and Broadcast Journalism, TV/Film Production, Public Relations, Advertising, Media Law, Ethical Considerations in the media, Sociology of the Media, Development Journalism, Photo Journalism, News writing, Media History, Communication and Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law, Communication and Good Governance, Theories of Communication and Media and Society. In addition, students are encouraged to take at least two modules outside the Mass Communication department in any department of their choice provided they have the requisite departmental requirement. The most popular modules normally chosen by students are Political Science, Sociology, French, Literature, Economics, Peace and Conflict Studies and History.
Critics of university training in mass communication argue that mass communication is a vocation and offering training at the level of the university is tantamount to “over-educating the journalist” (Medsger, 2003). Medsger observes that 59% of Pulizter prize winners never studied journalism. For broadcasters, this figure was even higher.
Several scholars have however stressed the need for university training for journalists to enable them ride smoothly on the communication superhighway that is demanding of today’s journalists.. “It was a different world in the 1950s or 60s. Journalism training was not required, nor was a degree in anything else”, observes Reynolds (2003). Reynolds estimates that within the last five years, the majority of those hired in journalism in Canada have university training. “The rule of thumb is that the best way to get a job is to have a journalism degree’, he insists.
Given the demands of current day journalists, who are expected to master the techniques of media convergence, have a clear understanding of complex global issues and interpret and explain them in a way that they can be easily understood to facilitate a platform for intelligent discourse, the need for training that will expose journalists to economics, sociology, human rights, international humanitarian law and peace and conflict studies cannot be overemphasised. The most likely institution where all of these can be pursued within a limited time span is the university.
Mass communication work may seem easy as many ne’er do wells get into it with ease. But it requires particular skills if it is to be practised professionally. For example, journalists should be capable of undertaking research to get all the information required to build up a good story. Research is a skill that has to be taught with its varied methods of data collection. The journalist also has to learn the art of interviewing which will enable him to ask the right questions and lead the conversation intelligently and to a logical conclusion. The processing of collected data into a comprehensible story that would enable readers/listeners/viewers to understand the significance and connections of certain events within the societal contexts is a skill that has to be taught.
It is often said that creativity makes a good journalists, but given the fact that university training also exposes the trainee journalist to modules outside mass communication that would give him a wholesome education and the necessary background to be able to analyse and interpret complex issues makes the difference between a university and non-university trained journalist. The objective is to give the journalist the kind of exposure that should enable him to background his stories, interpret issues and events analytically and objectively, give all angles to the story, which he may not be able to do adequately in the absence of this kind of training.
In many universities including the University of Sierra Leone, mass communication training is designed in a way that will give the student an opportunity for internship. The virtue of this kind of “sandwich” approach to training was well articulated by Kamps (2003) in these words:
Journalism students and media professionals unanimously praise the virtues of real-life work experience-based learning, vouching for its effectiveness both in the skills and self-confidence stakes”.
Conclusion
This study attempted to examine training as a tool for the development of the Sierra Leone media. It stressed the importance of mass communication and the role of the journalist. It discussed various types of training including on the job, vocational training and university training and examined what is available in the country. It pointed out that given the demands of current day journalism, with its pre-occupation of media convergence and the expectation that journalists have a clear understanding of complex global issues and are able to interpret and explain them in a way that they can be easily understood to facilitate public discourse, the need for training that will expose journalists to economics, sociology, human rights, international humanitarian law and peace and conflict studies cannot be overemphasised. It conceded that the most likely institution where all of these can be pursued simultaneously within a limited time span is the university.
Recommendations
This work has clearly shown that given the demands of today’s journalists, the old adage that a journalist is born and not made no longer gives a true picture of the kind of knowledge, professionalism, legal and ethical gen, as well as the skills that are required. The following recommendations may therefore be found helpful:
Structured training should be organised by all media houses to facilitate on the job training for their staff.
With the recent increase in training opportunities for media practitioners at the levels of both vocational and university, thought should be given by the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists to the criteria for membership of the professional body.
Effort by SLAJ and Fourah Bay College to establish evening courses for practising journalists as is being done by IPAM for personnel of the other professions should be intensified.
The environment for media convergence and understanding of its relevance to present day journalism must be created by media houses, and computer based technologies made accessible to media practitioners to facilitate their work.
Training opportunities for mid career journalists and also media personnel in management positions must be created to improve on the professionalism, ethics and standard of the media.
Bernadette Cole is the Director Institute of Library Information and Communication Studies (INSLICS) & Head of the Mass Communication Division (INSLICS), Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone. She is the author of Mass Media, Freedom and Democracy in Sierra Leone ( Freetown, 1995)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Blaye-amihere, Kabral, 2000: Fighting for Freedom: the autobiography of an African Journalist, Trans Afrika News Ltd., Accra, Ghana
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INTERVIEWS
Bangura, M.Y. Dr., Programme Consultant, Northern Polytechnic, Makeni, December, 2006
Barrie, Abdul Aziz, Deputy Principal, College of Business Studies, Freetown
Baryoh, David Tam, Managing Director, C-Met, January, 2007
Kamara, A.M., Sir Winston Churchill Institute of Management, Freetown
Metzger, Sam, former editor of We Yone, December 200
The Principal, Institute of Business Studies and Administration,
Turay, Joe Father, Fatima Institute, Makeni, December, 2006
INTERNET SOURCES
Atsifan, Joyce, 2003: Is J-School necessary in The Langara Journalism Review, 2003, http://www.langara.bc.ca/ljr/archive/LJR2003/J.html.
Kamps, Haje Jan, 2004: “To what degree does a journalism education benefit a career in print journalism”, http://everything 2.com/index.pl?node_id=1674889
Medsger, B (2003) Getting Journalism Education out of the way, http://jouirnalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/forum.1.essay.medsger.htlm.
NUJ 2003: Careers in Journalism, www.nujtraining.org.uk
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