By Gibril Gbanabome Koroma,
Editor/Publisher
Online payment system will start as from today
Today is Saturday, October 31, 2009. This is the date after which our thousands of readers will be asked to pay a token fee of ten dollars a year to read our exclusive stories, not press releases and articles sent by contributors who are not officially part of the PV team. We are going to provide, as promised, investigative news items and features you will never see in any other newspaper and later, down the road, a monthly magazine that we shall mail to your residence or office.
We shall also continue to provide views and opinions from ALL Sierra Leoneans including all the political parties without bias or favour. Our only request is that writers avoid profane language or personal insults or statements that are absolutely without evidence or foundation.
So get ready your ten dollars to help PV provide the quality journalism you need at this crucial moment in our country’s history. Readers in the North America, Europe and Australia can easily subscribe by using Paypal(our preferred method of payment) or credit card. You will know when the payment system comes on, any time from now.
Personal Attacks
Since my last editorial on personal attacks in the Sierra Leone media I have been contacted by a lot of people who did not seem to understand what I was talking about. Well, to make things easier for such people, here is what I said or believe about personal attacks in the Sierra Leone media:
1. I love a vigorous intellectual exchange of IDEAS or opinions. That’s what oils the engine of democracy. But saying somebody is a thief or murderer without coming up with tangible evidence is a waste of everybody’s time and opens the door to serious litigation. Indeed it ultimately does not benefit the writer of such trash or the country. Such a writer will be of little use to even his or her employers because he or she will merely drive away readers instead of bringing them onboard.
2. What is currently happening in the Sierra Leone media is for the most part not a vigorous exchange of ideas but virulent attacks on PERSONALITIES, most of it without any foundation. The public, I am sure, is hardly interested in whether a certain journalist is too fat, too ugly or whether this or that politician is beautiful or eats too much and so on. That is TRASH, not good journalism, the kind that our country desperately needs. In the history of Sierra Leonean journalism, icons like ITA Wallace-Johson, Julius Cole, Ibrahim Taqi (my favourite) and Sam Metzger will do extensive research and investigations before they put pen to paper. I remember reading and enjoying Sam Metzger’s serialized articles on various issues in We Yone newspaper in the late 60s and 70s. I was told Ibrahim Taqi will follow Albert Margai wherever he went; he even went to London to do stories on the then Prime Minister when he(Margai) went on official visits to the UK. That’s the mark of the dedicated and serious journalist. That’s my kind of journalist.
3. As somebody who has studied languages and communications to an advanced level I know the power of words. One can express one’s views very strongly without descending into the gutter because as I said a few days ago, using profanities or gutter language will just turn off the reader and make you the writer a kind of clown or raving lunatic. In the end your message will not get across, will be lost in translation, as it were. I will therefore encourage my compatriots in this field who love to rave and rant and insult others to take a deep breath, take a break, and consider using more polite but forceful language and see what happens. I can promise them that they will get more respect, more readers, and (this is very important) more recognition from people from all walks of life and from all political persuasions. The more civilized language you use while entertaining diverse views, the more you deal with ISSUES of national concern, the more you would help your country and the rest of the world and leave your mark on the sands of time. Try it.
Comments