GHANA INSTITUTE OF JOURNALISM
B.A. IN COMMUNICATION STUDIES
LEVEL 300
(TOP-UP WEEKEND)
INTRODUCTION TO JOURNALISM
FIRST SEMESTER (2015/2016 ACADEMIC YEAR)
MR. PHILIP ATAWURA
INTRODUCTION
The need for people to be
informed, acquire knowledge of events and to participate in public discourses
evolved the concept of journalism. This evolution, over time, conceptualised
and formalised journalism to be what it is today.
Humans are social beings
who are, arguably, always searching for information. This innate curiousness
has given us the urge to know what
is happening next door, down the street, in our suburb or town, other parts of
the state or territory we live in, nationally and internationally.
A BRIEF
HISTORY
It is generally accepted that the first journalist was an
Ancient Greek historian called Thucydides. He was born around 400 BC in Athens,
a city that became the birthplace of a form of direct democracy in the fifth
century. However, Thucydides and the great philosophers Plato and Aristotle
were critics of early Athenian democracy. They thought it was not democratic
enough because it was cumbersome, with those who were eligible to vote having
to actually attend meetings of the governing assembly to cast their ballots.
For the system to work effectively, voters needed to be well informed about
current affairs and have a good grasp of relevant issues.
However, disseminating news and commentary about affairs of
state was difficult. Printing had not been invented and all documents had to be
handwritten and copied. One way people such as Thucydides worked around that
problem was by writing speeches which they either delivered themselves to mass
audiences or which were delivered by other orators. Over time, however,
democratic rule evolved and changed. The system of direct voting, which had
been criticised by Thucydides as ‘the severest form of mob rule’ (Richard 2003,
p. 86), was replaced by systems of representative democracy in which a group of
leaders who put themselves forward as ‘the best’ was elected to govern and make
decisions on behalf of all people. One key element which allowed that evolution
to take place was the spread of political information to citizens and the
handing down of ideals and principles from one generation to the next.
According to Windschuttle (1999):
The origins of journalism lie in exactly the same place as the
origins of history. The first true historian is widely acknowledged as
Thucydides, the Athenian who wrote The
History of the Peloponnesian War sometime
between 424 and 400 BC … This is all first-hand observation and, to my mind,
there is no doubt it is journalism. In short, as well as the first historian,
Thucydides should be recognised as the first journalist… (Windschuttle 1999,
pp. 52, 54).
Much of The History
of the Peloponnesian War is a
running commentary on the course of the war as it unfolded. Thucydides
described his methods as follows: ‘with regard to my factual reporting of
events of the war, I have made it a principle not to write down the first story
that came my way, and not even to be guided by my own general impressions:
either I was present myself at the events which I have described or else I have
heard of them from eye-witnesses whose reports I have checked with as much
thoroughness as possible. Not that even so the truth was easy to discover:
different eye-witnesses give different accounts of the same events, speaking
out of partiality for one side or the other or else from imperfect memories
(Thucydides 1972, p. 48; also in Windschuttle 1999)’.
Thucydides was clearly seeking truth and doing his best to write
fair, accurate and balanced reports. As de Burgh said, ‘It is oft en said that
journalism is the first rough draft of history …’ (de Burgh 2000, p. 3).
But, as noted previously, printing had not been invented—and
neither had paper—so Thucydides could not circulate his handwritten reports to
the masses. It was to be about 1000 years before that problem was resolved. The
invention of printing and moveable type happened first in China. It led to the
earliest mass printing of documents in the period from 600 to 700 AD.
On the African continent, Bourgault (1995) overs that there was
a form of journalism practiced in Africa before the advent of colonialism.
Journalism then took the form of oral discourse using communication norms
informed by oral tradition and folk culture with communal story-tellers,
musicians, poets and dancers playing the role of the modern-day journalist.
However, as Bourgault puts it, because most of the systems of
mass media were introduced during the colonial period, analysis of these
systems, historical or otherwise, tend to reflect only what has happened during
this century.
Again, Bourgault (1995:205) spells out that griots, although
employed as praise singers, were permitted to criticise their patrons provided
the criticism bore the weight of group norms and values. Given the myriad of
institutional and cultural regulations, which guide the conduct of mainstream
media journalists in their watchdog role, the existence of group norms and
values to guide the conduct of griots in their criticism of their patrons and
other societal members must not be taken to mean lack of watchdog role in their
work.
Although Ghana shares a similar historical evolution regarding
the practice of journalism, the country was able to produce and disseminate
information in the style of Thucydides. According
to Barton’s assertions, it was in Ghana, then the Gold Coast, that the press
really took hold, and for a long time, it was exclusively African owned edited.
The Royal Gold Coast Gazette and Commercial Intellengencer, the first two
newspapers in the Gold Coast, began in Accra in 1822 in hand written form, and
for three years, it was recognised by the authorities as a semi official organ
of the area. Charles Bannerman was the first African editor in the Gold Coast
who was doing the same sort of thing in his Accra
Herald (later renamed the West
African Herald) launched in 1858.
Journalism has evolved overtime. The journey of journalism is
intrinsically fabricated to the contours of the journey of communication
technology. This happens when communication technology actually closes the time
and space for information dissemination to which journalism plays a pivotal role.
Next week, we shall try to define the concept of journalism,
what it is and what it is not. After that, a debatable aspect of journalism
which has many connotations to different people will be contextualised. We will
look at the philosophy, rules and impartiality of objectivity.
