[kictanet] Declining English grammar in our Newsprint

Mon Oct 10 19:22:22 EAT 2011

Sorry....may be onto something is the correct phrase. I know someone commented on how badly written some of our emails are but I beg to differ. That is not the main issue. Sometimes we are on our phones and in such a hurry and just want to get the message across. That is not the same as editing an article which I would give a different level of seriousness.........

________________________________
From: Catherine Adeya <elizaslider at yahoo.com>
To: elizaslider at yahoo.com
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Sent: Monday, October 10, 2011 6:58 PM
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Declining English grammar in our Newsprint

As a part-time editor...you are wrong. What we are suggesting is doable. We just have to pay for it. The person who said cost-cutting is one of the reasons for the poor quality maybe on to something. I totally disagree...you have used '"throwing the baby with the bath water" wrongly in this case!!!!!

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From: Agosta Liko <agostal at gmail.com>
To: Catherine Adeya <elizaslider at yahoo.com>
Sent: Monday, October 10, 2011 10:54 AM
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Declining English grammar in our Newsprint

Lets just say writing articles ... is like writing software.

If you are writing alot of code you are going to make mistakes ...

If you write one article a month, you are less likely to make mistakes than if you are expected to write 30

just like ... if you are writing alot of code, there are going to be mistakes ...

What we are doing with this grammer thread is "throwing out the baby with the bathwater"

:)

Ps: When served a plate of rice in Kenya and you see one maggot - what do you do ?

Throw out the plate or remove the maggot silently and engage

If there are any typos ... pole sana :)

On Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 10:16 AM, Catherine Adeya <elizaslider at yahoo.com> wrote:

I think there is a wrong impression that a Journalism graduate is best suited to edit a paper. You may be better off with an English major graduate, Linguistics graduate and Information Sciences (Publishing Major) graduate. The IS course at MU had a renowned editing course in the '80s with the late Jonathan Kariara. I do not know how they are doing now. I remember him teaching an editing class and emphasizing the importance of good grammar, good English and simplicity especially when communicating to the wider market. I remember "Class, it is easier to say "walk" rather than "perambulate" even though they mean the same thing.  He gave an example of certain words that you must be extremely careful about when editing...they are words that you must counter-check and DO NOT AT ANY COST rely on  your computer (the class already had experience in this). 
>
>
>Let me give you an example of one of those words and forgive me as I have no intention to be vulgar. Two years ago I was in Dar and I was reading their top local paper. The heading in one of the lead stories was 'President opens a Pubic library'......I can't remember whether it was a library or what but you know the word I am referring to. I actually drew the attention of someone I knew to this major error and she promised to get in touch with the editor. My point is such words on a spell-checker will be correct, it requires as well trained eye to still sweep over the document and pick words like this. Even in the the Kenyan case we lack this seriously yet the qualified people are there. I am glad this topic has come up because sometimes I just put the paper aside as I am horrified at the level of grammar and editorial mistakes. The same happens with the news that is scrolled during News broadcasts....and while I am at that... some of the Opinion
 questions are SO ABSURD and even worse they are  grammatically wrong...wrong...wrong....
>
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>Enough said....
>
>
>Nyaki
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>
>
>________________________________
> From: Victor Bwire <victor at article19.org>
>To: elizaslider at yahoo.com
>
>Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
>Sent: Tuesday, October 4, 2011 11:29 PM
>
>Subject: Re: [kictanet] Declining English grammar in our Newsprint
>
>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
>
>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
>
>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
>
>
>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.
>
>
>
>
>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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