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.