Last week, I had a chat with the editor of local newspaper. I asked her about the quality of writing exhibited the journalists. “Journalists?” she sneered, “What journalists? They’re more like reporters – they’re handed an assignment, come back to the office, sit down and regurgitate what’s in the press release. Aneesa, quality and journalists don’t go together. It’s no longer like how it was. Remember how you used to get yelled at? Or have your editor at the time ridicule your copy? You got better from it. Nowadays, editors can’t do that, or they just don’t care anymore,” she lamented.
Add to this the lack of good assignments and you have a great recipe for crap news. So this is where people like me come in. We provide these editors with news worthy angles and great pitches but they’re not used. Why?
“We have people to please,” was her reply, “We have to make sure that “the more important” subjects are given priority – and important doesn’t mean interesting by the way,” she explains.
And so, what should we do? “Just keep sending them in,” came the solution, “someone is bound to pick it up. And if no one does, then I guess you just have to rethink the angle and try again.”
Right. There is a phrase that goes, “If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again. Then give up. There’s no use in being a damn fool about it.” Well, there’s no prizes for guessing who are the damn fools for not recognizing good news pieces even if it were to slap them across the face.
1 comments:
People do not care because they choose not to. Perhaps they have been burnt too many times by inconsiderate students that just do nto care. But we must continue inorder for us to pass on a culture of sharing.
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