Don't Ignore Bread And Butter Issues - MISA Chief

By Baboki Kayawe
Staff Writer | Monday January 25, 2010 00:00

Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Director Thapelo Ndlovu said this at a two-day media workshop held in Gaborone on how to cover issues of poverty, social protection and food security last week.

Ndlovu said local journalists' apparent obsession with comfort leads to non-coverage of bread and butter issues because conferences rarely deal with such issues.

'I know that the media in Botswana has limited resources, but journalists have to try to initiate stories on issues of poverty,' he said.

Ndlovu said that local papers, which are mostly tabloids, do try but their modest efforts are always underplayed.

He added that papers like Mmegi dwell too much on comments by experts and authorities, thus failing to give some issues a human face as would be the case if the victims of the situations were interviewed.

Ndlovu also lamented lack of analysis by the media adding that the reader had to be assisted by the media to understand the seriousness of a given situation.

The MISA chief noted, as another serious weakness by the media, failure by reporters to follow-up the subjects of their stories, which left consumers of media products anxious to know how the story ended.

'There is a need to follow up stories, and broaden them,' he said.
Ndlovu said journalists need to identify and use various writing styles that would allow them to report various issues without being constrained by common practice.

'While the inverted pyramid is an essential part of news reporting, journalists must explore other more appealing, more attractive styles,' he said.

'The inverted pyramid' is a system of writing used by reporters where important
information is placed at the top such that when edited, the less important information can be cut out without the story losing its meaning. The inverted pyramid got its way into news reporting during war coverage when scribes at the battlefront were encouraged to write in that manner.

'It is clear that this form of news presentation is not having a maximum impact on covering poverty, hence the need to explore other styles,' Ndlovu said. 

Poverty, social protection and food security have been identified among subjects that the media tend to sideline.