When Amin ‘raped’ President Nyerere
Zadok Ekimwere
What you need to know:
‘‘The writer had correctly written “Amin raps Nyerere” as the headline of the story.
Effective, powerful, and influential communicators have one outstanding skill: the ability to choose and use words correctly because words are the main raw materials of their mission to communicate. Philosophically, it is rightly said that the essence of human beings is to communicate and to receive communication. Usually, this is enabled by the ease with which a communicator picks and arranges words to frame and convey the intended meaning to the intended audience.
Not so long ago, we witnessed the frustration and upheaval that erupted in the academic circles when the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) misapplied the word “expired” to label university courses it accredits, and the subsequent corrective action published by this newspaper, page 6 on June 6, titled “NCHE agrees to drop ‘expired’ course label”.
Just like a carpenter looks for and picks the most seasoned wood in order to assemble a particular model of furniture, an adept writer chooses the most suitable words to relay the desired messages. In literary parlance, such adept writers are romantically referred to as wordsmiths, the way our legendary John Nagenda used to be dexterous and bullish with words in his column, “One Man’s Week.” Such powerful and captivating prose is more demanding and challenging, especially for media practitioners: journalists are required to tell what exactly they mean and to mean what they say.
I was prompted to discuss this topic after reading a number of newspaper headlines in the mainstream media in the recent past regarding the death of Supreme Court Judge Stella Arach-Amoko. Let me just randomly pick three for my discussion: one said, “Former Justice Arach -Amoko’s burial set for Saturday.” The second, “Late Justice Stella Arach burial for Saturday.” Third, “Justice Stella Arach burial set for Saturday.” Can we pause and split hairs for a minute? All three headlines are talking about the same person and incident, burial.
My concern is the accuracy and correctness of the words used: “Former justice,” “Late justice,” and “Justice Stella Arach.” Given that the judge died while still in office, which headline was appropriate? In my opinion “Justice Stella Arach burial,” followed by “Late Justice Stella Arach burial” portrayed the right message. “Former Justice Arach” gives the impression she was no longer a judge at the time of death; which was not the case. The “late judge” is direct and accurate. And according to the English language norms, it is respectful and formal to say so about a dead person.
Mainstream media in Uganda has had a checkered history in headline writing. For example, there are cases when there is a mismatch between the headline and the story.
It is also not uncommon for the headline to be blown out of proportion and context.
Yet others are perhaps written to satisfy the writer’s whims.
I will pick a few ‘award-winning’ examples for illustration. During political campaigns in the 1980s, a government newspaper, Uganda Times’ wrote: “One million in Soroti rally,” a town of not more than 200,000 people at the time. And during Idi Amin’s regime, Voice of Uganda, another government-owned newspaper, plunged itself into an inexcusable quagmire by inadvertently publishing an obscene and taboo headline, “Amin rapes Nyerere.” Can you imagine?
The writer had correctly written “Amin raps Nyerere” as the headline of the story. At that time, there was a hostile relationship between Kampala and Dar es Salaam because Obote was exiled to Tanzania courtesy of President Julius Nyerere. It was the typesetters/compositors in the production department who, in their own limited wisdom, did not believe or envisage that a very short word like “rap” existed. The editor must have made a mistake, they thought, and without bothering to cross-check with the editor they ‘corrected’ it.
When the editor saw the unbelievable and sacrilegious headline the following day, he faced Amin’s wrath and feared he would be labelled a saboteur fit for a firing squad. He later fled to exile.
Because of such mistakes, there is always no charitable relationship between the editorial and production departments. Each side accuses the other of this and that, wiseacres. They both accuse each other of delaying the production of the paper. Production people always insist it is the editorial crew guilty because they are too slow and forward stories late.
Mr Ekimwere is a media consultant.
