Writing During Trump Era — 6 Things African Journalists Must Know

Writ­ing dur­ing the Don­ald Trump Era: It was crit­i­cal for those who advo­cat­ed on behalf of the African con­ti­nent, African blog­gers and jour­nal­ists espe­cial­ly, to take a stand and fight for the con­ti­nent we believe in.

African blog­gers need to have a voice on the inter­net, just as the mil­i­tary has a voice on the mil­i­tary affairs of a nation, or as doc­tors have a voice on med­ical and patient issues.

By African blog­gers and jour­nal­ists, I mean pro­fes­sion­al peo­ple who use the inter­net, radio, and TV, to trans­mit news and infor­ma­tion about the continent.

This is impor­tant because increas­ing­ly blog­ging, rather than tra­di­tion­al jour­nal­ism, now plays a crit­i­cal role in the dis­sem­i­na­tion of glob­al news and infor­ma­tion. And, for good or for bad, you don’t need a degree to blog or to prac­tice journalism.

With Don­ald Trump still in the White House, the task of writ­ing to defend the truth about the con­ti­nent has become even more urgent. With every Trump lie that goes unchal­lenged the more, he adds to the cacoph­o­ny of stereo­types about the African con­ti­nent. Just as pro­fes­sion­al peo­ple would like to be respect­ed for what they do, we don’t need to and don’t have to lis­ten to those who make the African con­ti­nent and its peo­ple look bad because of a big, fat lie from Don­ald Trump ex-pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States.

In addi­tion, Trump has been round­ly crit­i­cized for his assault on the free press in the U.S. and around the world. As a rebuke to Trump, news­pa­pers and media orga­ni­za­tions in Amer­i­ca, in a coor­di­nat­ed process, orga­nized a day in which they all stood up to the Trump admin­is­tra­tion. The rea­son, they said, was to defend the U.S. First Amend­ment, the right to free speech.

In 2014 I wrote on our sis­ter web­site Africa Agen­da that Africans in the dias­po­ra need to help tell the African sto­ry, beat its beat and dance its dance. For those of us who have seen the Black Pan­ther movie, the act­ing may have made you feel good about your home­land, but that is not enough. There is plen­ty of work that remains to be done, which is why I am writ­ing this post.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, a lot of those who say they are advo­cat­ing for the con­ti­nent usu­al­ly do so to ben­e­fit them. Many of our blog­gers have failed to do jus­tice to the con­ti­nent. They have fall­en into the trap set by peo­ple who want to fool them into believ­ing that they are serv­ing the com­mu­ni­ty with their online activ­i­ties. They have put mon­ey and cheap pub­lic­i­ty above the goal to have a con­vic­tion to fight for a cause.

As the con­ti­nent faces chal­lenges use these rec­om­men­da­tions to guide your blogging.

Don’t let others talk you out of your convictions 

Don­ald Trump is pre­sumed to have lied about the African con­ti­nent being a s##hole? Are you one of those adding injury to the insult Trump made about the con­ti­nent by agree­ing that it is a s##hole?

Always remem­ber there are two sides to the African sto­ry. We need a com­plete pic­ture of the con­ti­nent, not just what some peo­ple may like or not like about it.

What are your beliefs as a blog­ger? What kind of blog­ger are you? Are you blog­ging just because you want to make mon­ey? If that’s your only goal per­haps you don’t need to read this.

Do you agree that for every news sto­ry there is anoth­er side to it? Are you the kind who would sac­ri­fice the integri­ty of an entire con­ti­nent to encour­age lies about it?

I am always stunned when well-mean­ing friends and fam­i­ly mem­bers send me links to videos and oth­er infor­ma­tion from blog­gers and activists on the inter­net who spend so much time den­i­grat­ing the con­ti­nent and its lead­ers through their activism. While it may be enter­tain­ing most of what I’ve come across are one-sided mono­logues filled with dis­gust­ing sto­ries about cor­rup­tion and mismanagement.

But I have to ask where is the oth­er side to cor­rup­tion and mismanagement—good gov­er­nance. Do you care that there is good gov­er­nance tak­ing place in many African nations? Do you care that the con­ti­nent has a great his­tor­i­cal her­itage that is won­der­ful. Why not high­light it?

If you are too focused on just one side of an issue, you are miss­ing the oth­er side. This is not activism. It is called bias.

In The Ele­ments of Jour­nal­ism, Bill Kovach and Tom Rosen­tiel make an impor­tant point by stat­ing that “A jour­nal­ist who leaves out so much of the oth­er news in the process is like the map­mak­er who failed to tell the trav­el­er of all the oth­er roads along the way.” Kovack and Rosen­tiel elu­ci­date this by rec­om­mend­ing for jour­nal­ists to “make the news pro­por­tion­al and comprehensive.”

Even with shrink­ing resources for news­rooms this pro­por­tion­al­i­ty and com­pre­hen­sive­ness they talk about can be cov­ered through the prop­er rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the com­mu­ni­ty in the cov­er­age of the news.

If you don’t under­stand this then you need to read my next point.

Know the difference between blogging and journalism

Just as there is a dif­fer­ence between an opin­ion piece, com­men­tary, analy­sis, and the news, there is a clear line between being a blog­ger and being a journalist.

Many of those who pass for blog­gers today some­times call them­selves jour­nal­ists. Yes, there are blog­gers who dou­ble as jour­nal­ists. With the blur­ring of the line between blog­ging and jour­nal­ism, real jour­nal­ists, the ones who prac­tice jour­nal­ism, are taught in school or on the job, to adhere to the tenets of jour­nal­ism. Mean­while, many who sim­ply blog, for blog­ging’s sake, and those who blog just to make a quick buck, don’t adhere to the same standards.

This has led to many ques­tion­able prac­tices we see among African blog­gers. We’ve seen many blog­gers who spout a lot of stuff, gar­ner huge inter­net fol­low­ing, and yet flaunt the ethics of blog­ging or basic journalism.

But they are believed by their fol­low­ers, fur­ther sink­ing the image of the African con­ti­nent with their jokes and lies.

If you can­not sep­a­rate your per­son­al opin­ions and prop­er­ly label the mate­r­i­al you are putting out, at the very least you should not fool your audi­ence into think­ing you are doing busi­ness on behalf of the peo­ple you are sup­posed to represent.

Because of this and the many threats posed by cit­i­zen jour­nal­ists, Scott Gant, writ­ing in We’re All Jour­nal­ists Now (The Trans­for­ma­tion of the Press and the Reshap­ing of the Law in the Inter­net Age) states: “Many tra­di­tion­al media orga­ni­za­tions and oth­er busi­ness­es will resist con­fer­ring cit­i­zen jour­nal­ists with the kinds of rights and priv­i­leges extend­ed to pro­fes­sion­als.” He says the way this hap­pens is often sub­tle, qui­et, and behind the scenes. The way I’ve seen this hap­pen per­son­al­ly in pro­fes­sion­al cir­cles is through a lack of recog­ni­tion or acknowl­edg­ment from oth­ers that some­one is even a journalist.

So beware of why some jour­nal­ists and blog­gers may be ignor­ing or dis­miss­ing your work, no mat­ter how good you think it is. Take the time to find out the rea­sons why they are doing so. The fact is that there is often a dis­play of a “supe­ri­or­i­ty com­plex” by many jour­nal­ists who think that because they are pro­fes­sion­al jour­nal­ists, blog­gers or oth­er jour­nal­ists, who may be doing their best, don’t mea­sure up.

My next point takes this issue further.

Just because you write stuff online does not make you an expert on everything 

You might ask who cares if I am an expert or an author­i­ty on a par­tic­u­lar area but that only adds to the dis­play of your pub­lic stu­pid­i­ty when rea­son­able peo­ple read your stuff.

The idea of peo­ple pre­tend­ing that they know some­thing when they don’t or ignor­ing expert coun­sel is not just an African prob­lem. This affects the U.S. and oth­er devel­oped nations as well.

Writ­ing in his intro­duc­tion to The Death of Exper­tise, schol­ar Tom Nichols says we live in dan­ger­ous times. “Nev­er have so many peo­ple had so much access to so much knowl­edge and yet have been so resis­tant to learn­ing anything.”

Write in clear English if you want to be taken seriously

If Eng­lish is not your pre­ferred lan­guage of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, then what­ev­er lan­guage you use make sure you com­mu­ni­cate your points clearly.

The use of lan­guage is one of the hall­marks of great blog­gers and jour­nal­ists. Your lan­guage skills deter­mine to what degree you can suc­ceed in the field.

Any time a blog­ger or jour­nal­ist writes in a lan­guage that seems mud­dled there is a ten­den­cy for mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion or con­fu­sion to occur. Mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion comes through mis­lead­ing state­ments and mis­lead­ing state­ments come from the mis­use of information.

What is the solu­tion? Study bet­ter punc­tu­a­tion; prac­tice the use of the AP style if you are a pro­fes­sion­al jour­nal­ist. Oth­er­wise learn the tools of your craft. If you pro­fess to the pub­lic that you are a pro­fes­sion­al blog­ger or jour­nal­ist you bet­ter have some­thing to show for it. Else cut it and stop fool­ing your audi­ence with a copy that is rid­dled with too many errors.

Do not copy the works of others and claim them to be yours

A clear sign of fake blog­gers and jour­nal­ists on the inter­net is their abil­i­ty to mim­ic the work of oth­ers. Besides the rush to be suc­cess­ful and prove some­thing to oth­ers, is a ten­den­cy, seen most­ly in bud­ding jour­nal­ists and blog­gers, of want­i­ng to be like every­one else. I call it the “I can do that too syndrome.”

Why is this a prob­lem? To be a suc­cess­ful jour­nal­ist, writer, or blog­ger you need to fol­low a sense of call­ing. In The Writer’s Man­i­festo writer Jeff Goins states, “A call­ing is what you have when you look back at your life and make sense of what it’s been try­ing to teach you all along.” Goins says find­ing your call­ing takes work and requires a “fear-fac­ing jour­ney” that lasts for a lifetime.

Do you feel a sense of call­ing as a jour­nal­ist or blog­ger when you write? Oth­er­wise, there won’t be a need to copy oth­ers because your unique self will spur you to be you and not some­one else.

The craft of jour­nal­ism, and by exten­sion pro­fes­sion­al blog­ging, is an art rather than sci­ence. It’s an art because it comes with gift­ing which trans­lates into your call­ing. Mean­while, it is not mere­ly sci­ence that needs to be stud­ied and approved by others.

The idea that you’ll start a blog, copy oth­er people’s ideas, and act like they are yours is not an admirable thing. In oth­er words, it is fraud­u­lent. This does not mean you can’t be inspired by the words or the works of oth­ers, but at least you ought to acknowl­edge oth­ers who have inspired you or give cred­it when you bor­row ideas from oth­ers. I’ve seen a lot of blog­gers or peo­ple who claim to be blog­gers who boast about every­thing they’ve done as the world revolves around them. A lack of humil­i­ty is a step toward cowardice.

Avoid the use of deceit in your blog­ging or writ­ing. In oth­er words, avoid the use of lan­guage that masks deceit by every means. Don’t be like Don­ald Trump.  Trump has been described as a cow­ard both by the polit­i­cal left and right because of his decep­tive and intim­i­dat­ing tac­tics. The pre­vi­ous U.S Pres­i­dent has been accused of say­ing one thing and then deny­ing he said so the next minute.

Blog with a purpose in mind

I cov­ered part of this in the intro­duc­tion. Are you blog­ging to make mon­ey, or are you writ­ing because you are pas­sion­ate about an issue and want to get your point across to a wider audi­ence? Are you doing this for short-term gain or long-term profit?

Are you blog­ging for fame or are you blog­ging because of a cause you hold dear­ly at heart? The way you respond to these ques­tions deter­mines how you’ll approach pro­fes­sion­al blog­ging or jour­nal­ism. It also will deter­mine how much time and com­mit­ment you give to it.

Sad­ly I’ve seen too many Africa-relat­ed blogs where the only pur­pose is to please friends and fam­i­ly. A lot of such blogs quick­ly turn into gos­sip cham­bers where the blog­gers engage in fol­ly and silli­ness to out­shine each oth­er. What is the end result?

I’ve seen far too many blogs that sprout in a day or two, yet are filled with won­der­ful­ly ridicu­lous com­men­tary. It is entire­ly OK for every­one to do their own thing and to seek pub­lic­i­ty on the web. But it’s not OK to fool the com­mu­ni­ty by using fake dis­sent, innu­en­do, and lies to make a point that does not exist.

What is the point and what is the pur­pose one might ask when you read through them. Where do some of these peo­ple come from?

Thank good­ness we’ve seen many of the blogs that rise fast, quick­ly dis­ap­pear because of the authors’ lack of sta­mi­na. Sta­mi­na in the busi­ness of blog­ging is the abil­i­ty to out­last your com­pe­ti­tion. You have to ask your­self the ques­tion, what is your mis­sion from the start?

In clos­ing, every­one is going to make mis­takes. But let them be hon­est mistakes.