ONLINE JOURNALISM PRACTICE IN GHANA

By Mawutodzi Kodzo Abissath

SATURDAY, JULY 15, 2005

Never forget this African proverb which admonishes us that: "When the rhythm of the drum changes, you must also change the cadence of the dance accordingly".

It is now crystal-clear that Information Communication Technology (lCT) has come to stay. It has 'reduced the entire globe into a miniature community, if you like.

ICT has succeeded in no small measure to change the way mankind does things, from birth to death. You can think of e-birth or e-death that is, giving birth electronically or dying electronically and even be buried online?

But one profession on the face of the earth, the practice of which has been affected positively or otherwise by ICT is journalism. As a matter of fact, ICT has even provided more ammunition for people who are of the opinion that journalism is not a profession in the first place.

The truth is that anybody who can write some kind of essay in English language and put it on the Internet can claim to be a journalist. How can we verify the authenticity of the professional affinity of such a person as far as journalism is concerned? Every trade, including even 'buying and selling' ought to be learned if one must be a professional 'buyer and seller'. How much more this noble profession of the fourth estate of the realm?

ICT has transformed journalism into what is now referred to as 'E- Journalism', or 'Online Journalism', or ‘Web-Journalism’.  Hence, practitioners of the profession who possess the skill or the technical know- how of employing the ICT tools to write news on the Internet and the World Wide Web (www) are now called 'E-Journalists' or Online-Journalists or 'Cyber-Journalists'.

Thus, those journalists who do not know or cannot use ICT tools especially the Content Management System (CMS) or think it is not necessary to learn this new way of  practicing the 'trade' are referred to as 'Traditional Journalists'. You may be a veteran in the profession, practicing journalism for a quarter of a century but you cannot be an online journalist unless you learn the technique of e-journalism.

Let us share some basic knowledge in Online Journalism which some Ghanaian journalists were exposed to recently in Accra as part of capacity building for media practitioners in ICT. The French Embassy in Accra in collaboration with the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) recently organised a short training programme in Online Journalism for 14 journalists from a few media houses including the Information Services Department (lSD) Accra.

The workshop took place at the Advanced Information Technology Institute, Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT, near the State House in Accra. It is important for the public to know the difference between this centre and the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Centre at Teshie on the Accra - Tema beach road.

As I was saying, the said E-Journalism workshop was the first of its kind sponsored by the French Embassy in Accra. The resource person by the name Jerome Hourdeaux was a very young E-Journalist of le Nouvel Observateur, one of pure online magazines based in Paris, France. He told us that his media house had another daily newspaper which was in existence long before Online Journalism was born.

In fact, the history of online journalism has it that the very first newspaper in the United States of America to launch an online edition of its newspaper was the Chicago Tribune in 1992, with its version the Chicago Online.

 As for the history of traditional journalism, all journalists know that the etymology of journalism, from the Latin diurnalis was there before Adam and Eve were ejected from the Garden of Eden for defiance, or misbehaviour, or naughtiness, or all of above.  Because we now live in the age of Knowledge Management (KM) and Experience Sharing, (ES) I deem it necessary to share the little we were taught with other colleague Ghanaian journalists who were not at the workshop. Most of the journalists who participated in the programme seemed to be from media houses which were already practicing some kind of Online Journalism.

The new basic technique of writing for the web which we were introduced to is what is known as Blogging. Blogging is simply a new way of creating a personal website which does not involve too many technicalities.            

Unlike the traditional way of developing a website whereby one needs to know (html) or (java script) and what have you, with all ICT jargons, which are confusing to aged-brains, Blogging is easier to grab and create. You can create your own Blog and write articles or any information, including photographs, graphics and other wonderful and beautiful things and upload them on web instantly.

Blog operators are a community of Internet users who create forums for exchange of new ideas and knowledge in ICT. They can chat online. Other important and relevant websites can be linked on Blogs for interaction among users on the Internet.

Online Journalists are now using their own Blogs to link up with other leading media institutions, both printing and electronic, throughout the world. This enables them to enrich the content of their own newspapers or radio and television stations.

Apart from creating personal Blogs as individuals the latest craze is what is known as Corporate Blogging. Organisations and institutions in America and other advanced nations find it easier and cheaper to create Blogs instead of developing normal websites which are rather capital intensive and time consuming. It is also very difficult to manage websites if you are not a technical person. This is why some media houses in Ghana who rely solely on Internet Service Providers (ISP) and Hosts to manage their websites for them sometimes find their sites not being updated regularly.

For example, some state-owned media houses still have J. J. Rawlings as the President of Ghana. Another important ministry still has Dr Ekwow Spio-Garbrah as the Minister for Education in Ghana on their websites. This is very misleading to foreigners who may visit such websites to obtain information on Ghana. The Blog used by the resource person to introduce the new technique to us at the workshop was in French. He explained that, that was the one he was more familiar and conversant with. He advised us to explore the Internet and discover other Blogs in English by using the Google.com search engine.

However, the one we learned for demonstration at the workshop is this: http://www.over-blog.com. After formulating this address, as URL you will be taken to a web page where you will have to click on 'create your free blog'. Then you will have to register online by giving your name and address; the title of your Blog; the name of your Blog, that is, how you may want your personal website to be known by other web or Blog users.

After going through the procedure, you will have to click on 'I accept' policy agreement that you will not use pornographic materials on the Blog and that you will not indulge in copyright and other illegal online practices etc. Then you will submit your request by clicking on envoyer or send. When your application is approved, you will receive a confirmation through your e-mail address. This implies that you will have to have an e-mail address in the first place.

After you have received your confirmation within a few minutes or so of registration, you may enter your e-mail address and password. You will now be taken to another web page where you can actually create your own Blog.

As explained above, the URL given here will take you to a web page where all the instructions for the creation of free Blog are in French language. There you may click on modules to choose a template of your choice.  When you click on articles, a working page will appear just as compose in yahoo, or hotmail for you to write your article or news and post it online. That is all! To preview your article, just click on apercu at the top right corner of the page.

If you are already familiar with web development, you can easily do this without any problem at all. But if you are a neophyte like me, then you may need some initial guidance.

I am still learning. But if in your estimation, I am a little ahead of you, and you are desirous of knowing this latest way of writing for the web and creating a Blog then I should be obliged to share this basic knowledge in Online Journalism with you.

The truth is that, whether we like it or not, lCThe T is the technological revolution of the 2Ist   century and Online Journalism is the future of our time-honoured profession.

The author works with Information Services Department (ISD) abissath@gmail.com

NB: This article was first published by Daily Graphic on Saturday, July 15, 2005.