Singing the praises of a journalist

I read everyday, with pride the fine stories written by the student journalists and I would like to encourage them as they embark on this profession that is admired by many.

A journalist is a supreme artist, divine sculptor, created a little lower than an angel, but given some animal attributes.

A journalist is a newspaper animal, a newspaper beast or a lion. Of all attributes of a good journalist, one that excites me is the one given by Nicholas Tomalin, a British journalist and war correspondent killed while covering the Yom Kippur war. He wrote in 1969 in the Sunday Times, ‘the only qualities essential for real success in journalism are rat-like, cunning, plausible manner, and a little literary ability’.

To make it as a journalist, says Tomalin, you need to be cunning, you need to be clever, you need to be skillful, you need to be deceitful, you need some negative tactics, you need to be a Machiavellian (a politically unprincipled). It is sad, but that is the truth. In war and journalism, all is fair.

Like a rat, a journalist has his nose on the ground, sniffing. A journalist smells news the way a rat smells food. A journalist must always smell a rat. A journo who has no nose for news can never win in this game, in this business of newspapering.

For me, the only quality essential for real success in journalism is the nose for news. You need to be able to smell news, you need to smell trouble from far and near. You need to smell news, package it so well for the reader to want to bring out his money to buy your newspaper.

Now let me go back to my topic for today. What are the other animal qualities needed to succeed in the business of newsgathering? Of course there are canine qualities.

That is why newsmen all over, are often referred to as newshounds, press packs and society’s watchdogs. Like rats, dogs have a psychic and uncanny power to smell. That is why dogs are often used in tracking down drug couriers. That is why dogs are usually sent on the trail of the missing and the disappeared.

That is why dogs are used by the police in solving certain mysteries beyond human comprehension. You need dogged determination. You need the determination of a dog to be able to break a story.

Journalism is not for the faint-hearted. To make it in journalism, you need the courage of a lion. You need to be lion-hearted. You need to be aggressive. You need to be a paper tiger. You need feline curiosity.

You need the curiosity of a cat. Without curiosity you cannot live as a journalist. Without curiosity you are as good as dead in journalism.

In Africa folklores, the tortoise is wise and cunning. You need to be a tortoise. You need to be a parrot, ‘the bird that speaks the bitter truth which the world is not prepared to listen to’.

As a journo you have to stick to the truth at all times, and like the parrot, you should have a powerful mind to recall names and faces. People make news. If you don’t know people, how can you get access to news?

My dear beloved young journo, learn from the parrot. And learn from the ant. Journalism is not for the sluggards. The book of Proverbs says ‘go to the ant, you sluggard, consider her ways and be wise’. An ant has no overseer, no ruler; she provides her supplies in the summer and gathers her food in the harvest.

Journalism is self-motivating. Like the ant, you don’t need anybody to tell you what to do or what assignment to pursue. It is a profession that thrives on personal initiative and self-enterprise. To excel you have to learn from the camel and go the extra mile. In spite of all deprivations and harsh terrain, the camel keeps going. A journo needs a dose of a camel’s tenacity.

Journalism keeps you busy. You are as busy as a bee. And like Muhammad Ali, you dance like a butterfly and sting like a bee. I believe you will sting when you need to sting the perpetrators of evil in this country.

Like a mosquito, a journalist makes life uncomfortable for those who are holding our country hostage with their greed. Like an eagle you must soar high to the zenith, there to get a bird’s eye view of this world. Like a giraffe journalism should elevate you up to be able to sit on the same　high　table with giants, with kings and queens of the universe.

Like a giraffe you must be raised to be able to raise posers with the rulers and leaders of the world.

Happy reporting young journalist. I wish you all the best.

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