Perspective: Butterflies flutter in big bellies

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Stephen Mpofu
Can it be said with unmitigated certainty that preliminary bouts in boxing and curtain raisers in soccer do send butterflies fluttering in the bellies of the big boys or girls waiting to flaunt their stuff?

Hardly ever so. On the contrary, if sanctioned by the technical staff the exposure certainly sends fighting spirits soaring in the anatomies of the sportsmen and sportswomen in point.

Yet print media practitioners have lately exposed their fragile hearts at the advent of social media in post modernity when these journalists ought instead to be demonstrating an unflinching intrepidity in the execution of their noble profession.

In recent weeks the journalistic atmosphere has become replete with expressions of fear by some so-called print media gurus that newspapers, for instance, might soon be rendered dinosaurs by WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Google so forth and so on.

Yet if truth be told, these forms of media should be welcomed with both hands by print journalists as curtain raisers or teasers of big stories that newspapers can then follow up to give the reader more depth and perspective, as the case might be.

One might even jokingly say the various forms of social media merely wound game, or news topics, that print journalists should then follow up to provide greater depth in order to move mountains of challenges facing our nation by providing solutions or suggestions for a better job to be done by the powers that be, or by members of the public who bear important responsibilities in helping the government, or other governmental institutions and the private sector in making our motherland the best place for all to live.

Ironically, journalists in countries that first introduced print media are not known to have thrust any beleaguered heads into their hands with copious tears streaming down their cheeks in fear of being upstaged by the new, alternative forms of communication that include online publications.

If anything, social media have been embraced to co-exist with and complement communication with the print media.

The crux of the matter with regards to diversity in communication as offered by social media is speed.

Speed by non-trained communicators to break the news — skeletal news if you will — to the next person, and so creating an opportunity for enterprising and professional media personnel to dress up the skeleton with more authentic layers of clothing and with consideration to ethical and legal implications of the stories or pictures published on social media.

Social media may have taken Zimbabwe by storm, but insults or mud splashed in people’s faces and mouths are examples of ignoble blunders that could eventually prove the Achilles’ heels for these new forms of communication.

Now, must trained professional men and women surely be terrified by the presence of such novices, instead of demonstrating just how the printed word which comparatively has longer shelf-life does wield greater power to perform, educate, entertain and transform societies?

At any rate, print and broadcast journalism — the latter being quicker in disseminating information —have co-existed since time immemorial with neither of them a threat to the other.

A strong case appears apparent here, and it is that print journalists should become more innovative to match the speed with which social media communicate information rather than leave a story unpublished for days or even weeks as though no competitors exist to spoil the game for them.

For instance, rarely do newspapers in this country carry quickies as summaries of many news items for busy readers to have a glimpse, yes, a complete glimpse of events taking place around them and be informed of various trends in life.

Instead, readers are lumped with screeds upon screeds of stories tedious for any enthusiastic reader to pore through, with bylines used ostensibly to advertise the writer than to tell the story as it is without filling up vital space with the writer’s name.

Some so-called print media journalism experts have been vocal in calling on employers to improve their conditions of service, probably as an incentive for journalists to excel in their work.

Should not the bromide be reversed here with journalists demonstrating their ingenuity in the profession with innovative ideas that then leave employers with no option but to celebrate the scribe’s leadership with monetary or other thank-yous?

Of course, this pen’s discourse is meant to serve as a curtain raiser to more debate on the issue of print versus social media to provoke more ideas for the way forward in a multi-faceted communications industry for a better Zimbabwe, socially, politically and economically.

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