[kictanet] Declining English grammar in our Newsprint

[John Kariuki]

The starting point really is high school.If you find a poor english writer,kindly check his O-level results in english language and start from there.

John Kariuki


________________________________
From: Sam Aguyo <saguyo at yahoo.com>
To: ngethe.kariuki2007 at yahoo.co.uk
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Sent: Wednesday, 5 October 2011, 7:16
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Declining English grammar in our Newsprint


When i read this three things come into mind; Journalism as a course which has its ethos, ICT which is just but a tool to be used and finally language which is acquired at school through learning.  I want to believe that it is part of a requirement in any journalism training that the student must be good in the language either English, Kiswahili or any other relevant one.   I am tempted to blame the media houses for possibly having people who are either sleeping on the job or might not have the requisite qualifications to be on that job.

Even if ICT was part of the curriculum in journalism training, while the student is not conversant with the language and style it is futile.  It is impossible to spell check (ICT) a word you have no idea about.  


How wonderful it is to use ICT when you know what you want to achieve!

Sam

 


________________________________
From: Andrea Bohnstedt <andrea.bohnstedt at ratio-magazine.com>
To: saguyo at yahoo.com
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Sent: Tuesday, October 4, 2011 11:58 PM
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Declining English grammar in our Newsprint


Grammer? :) 

Yes, there's an awful lot of bad spelling, haphazard punctuation, and so on. The Financial Standard treated us to'The boy who often got into trouble with his father for not tacking in his shirt' in an article about the CBK governor. It also claimed that 'The sale of the Grand Regency Hotel bloated the otherwise good work by the governor.....'

But two points: Victor is right that ICT may be part of the problem - in particular the mobile phone. SMS English has become pervasive, and you regularly find graduates who literally can't string a sentence together anymore. I receive internship applications in SMS English. 

Also, hiring unemployed graduates isn't the solution: proofreading, editing, subbing isn't something that you just know how to do even if you have an English degree. 

Figuring out how to use spellcheck isn't very difficult. But many people just don't use it because, I suspect, they don't see the value in it anymore. Also, spellcheck won't fish out everything: sparking and sparkling are both proper words. Except there's nothing that sparkles a riot. 

And then there's the school system - remember the 'misclennous' expenses listed by the striking teachers? Or the many, many typos on the Elimuportal.net? 

Yes, it's a topic I'm a bit obsessed with: http://the-star.co.ke/business/andrea-bohnstedt/36970-when-english-becomes-greek

.

On 4 October 2011 23:29, Victor Bwire <victor at article19.org> wrote:

Infact it is the ICT use that is the cause of the problem- given the little ICT literacy by some of our newsrooms- most of our sub editors learn computer by on job-rarely able to master command of the computer functions- including grammer, spell checks-it will continue happening
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>Previously, we used to print hard copies of the articles for editing manually with red pens- thus very few mistakes- but now
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>Many of journalism courses do not include introduction to computer lessons- so how will the graduates know how to use them
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>Who regulates journalism training or draws the course or approves the same in the country anyway- if you even happen to see some course outlines offered in some of the colleges and universities offering journalism  including Government ones- you will feel sorry
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>________________________________
>From: kictanet-bounces+victor=article19.org at lists.kictanet.or.ke [kictanet-bounces+victor=article19.org at lists.kictanet.or.ke] on behalf of james ratemo [jratemo at gmail.com]
>Sent: 04 October 2011 21:16
>To: Victor Bwire
>
>Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions
>
>Subject: Re: [kictanet] Declining English grammar in our Newsprint
>
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>Bwana PS what are you insinuating? We open our newsrooms fro the so called English majors? Some of them are in the newsrooms already...maybe they are sleeping on the job...my opinion
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>On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 11:11 PM, <bitange at jambo.co.ke<mailto:bitange at jambo.co.ke>> wrote:
>All of today's newspapers had several grammatical errors.  At this time and age of ICT, is it not too embarrasing to have such errors?  We have  thousands of English majors without jobs.  It is time for media to be thorough in what they do by utilizing our many graduates without jobs.  As a Kenyan I get embarrased to see such errors.
>
>Ndemo.
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>
>Sent from my BlackBerry®
>
>-----Original Message-----
>
>From: Grace Githaiga <ggithaiga at hotmail.com<mailto:ggithaiga at hotmail.com>>
>Sender: kictanet-bounces+bitange=jambo.co.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:jambo.co.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
>Date: Sun, 2 Oct 2011 13:32:57
>
>To: <bitange at jambo.co.ke<mailto:bitange at jambo.co.ke>>
>Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions<kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>>
>Subject: [kictanet] GSMA: Calls will remain high between African countries
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