[kictanet] Declining English grammar in our Newsprint

Tue Oct 11 09:36:50 EAT 2011

Hi Andrea,

What is outsourcing if not sending out what has been standardised, as some have mentioned that it is becoming too expensive to hire editors why not outsource the same.

A jobless language graduate is no different from an employed language graduate, the graduate is jobless because the media houses cannot afford to pay them to sit in the office to work so why not apply technology.

That graduate sitting in Chepalungu can go to Pasha centre every evening after tending the firm or teaching at  the local primary school log onto the web and proof read articles due for publishing.  At 500/- per article the media house will spend 15,000/-, no pension or medical expenses, no desk space required, no tea at 10 and 4, one less supervisor, our food security will have moved a step forward, the slums in Nairobi will grow that much slower, the local school will have another teacher thus reducing the teacher/student ratio and last and least you and I will be less stressed by the mediocrity that has manifested in the media.

"Think global but act local"

Robert Yawe
KAY System Technologies Ltd
Phoenix House, 6th Floor
P O Box 55806 Nairobi, 00200
Kenya

Tel: +254722511225, +254202010696

________________________________
From: Andrea Bohnstedt <andrea.bohnstedt at ratio-magazine.com>
To: robertyawe at yahoo.co.uk
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Sent: Monday, 10 October 2011, 10:41
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Declining English grammar in our Newsprint

What Catherine said. Editing, proofreading, subbing require skill and experience and knowledge - it's *not* something you can just farm out to jobless graduates. 

On 10 October 2011 10:16, 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....
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>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.
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>Sent from my BlackBerry®
>
>-----Original Message-----
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>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>>
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