By Gideon Nkala
Editor, Mmegi Monitor
Gaborone, Botswana
Hosted by The Kansas City Star

My participation in the Alfred Friendly Press Fellowships (AFPF) will go down as a watershed in my pursuit to be a better journalist. I have obviously grown in my confidence and general craft.

One of the greatest lessons that I have learned from the United States media is the importance of accuracy in news reports. I want to believe that anybody who is inducted into journalism is immediately told of the centrality of accuracy in news but in American newsrooms accuracy is built into all the newsroom activity. From the initial conception of a story idea to the very final gate-keeper, accuracy is no doubt the prime concern. Every step of the way I have been asked many questions by colleagues, editors and copy editors pertaining to the accuracy of information in stories. This would start with what would elsewhere be allowed to pass as some innocuous slip-up, but not here. The unwritten law seems to be ‘there is no small mistake; in our business all of them are bad.’

I now know that I have to check, re-check and triple-check names of people, organizations, numbers and any other facts.

Before I came here I would always assume that I know the spelling of the name ‘Mary’ but I now know I have to ask the interviewee how to spell the name. Suffice to add that my assumptions have almost invariably been proved wrong. Thanks to this rigorous verification I no longer just rely on intuition, the telephone directory, the police, press releases and other ‘inside sources’ as the gospel truth. I go beyond the conventional.

Such is the higher commitment of the American press to being publications of record that they have regular corrections boxes. At The Kansas City Star and other newspapers, the correction box is complemented by a reader’s Ombudsman. This is exactly what we need in Botswana.

As a practitioner in Botswana, where civil suits fly thick and fast, I intend to take a leaf from the American press and make accuracy the summit of my practice and that of my newspaper. I am convinced that the majority of the many defamation cases we have had in the country were a direct result of inaccurate reports. It therefore goes without saying that if we put in place a rigorous verification system we will have significantly addressed the problem of unwarranted defamation and thus bringing more credibility to the media.

My long term goal would be to see the whole press in Botswana buying into the accuracy crusade. As a member of the national journalists association, Media Institute of Southern Africa–Botswana Chapter, I will share with colleagues the virtues of a more rigorous verification process.

I am particularly mindful that people are generally apprehensive of (drastic) change. The best way of implementing my ideas will be to start practicing them myself and only then can one start inducting other colleagues.

There is perhaps no better way of nailing many problems that assail most newsrooms than working on the relationship between editors, reporters, photographers and all other players in the newsroom. So much time is lost trying to patch bruised egos and differences in the newsrooms. While one is not any way suggesting a magic wand can be waved to solve all the problems and low morale in the newsrooms, my flirtation with coaching techniques suggests to me that the technique is the way to go.

I have worked with some editors who believed in me as a writer and only saw their role as facilitators in news-gathering and writing process.

They helped me see my mistakes and most importantly helped me arrive at the best way to present my stories and in the end it was my story and not their story. It is my fervent conviction that this is what my newsroom needs.

For me to get the best out of my reporters I need to inspire confidence instead of shattering their confidence — this is exactly the golden path I want to tread. There is a greater need to communicate and give feedback to my colleagues so that they in turn can actively participate in the general operations of the newsroom.

My contention is that a happy and motivated newsroom is the foundation of all other lofty goals an institution sets itself. Without good rapport all else in the newsroom will fail.