Challenges as a daily newspaper

By Sylvanus Ezieh Acha’ana

Sylvanus Ezieh Acha'aa

It is often said that it is more difficult to climb to the top than to crumble. Yet, it is most difficult to maintain leadership than attaining it. Maintaining the leadership position entails challenges; most of which entails withstanding the spanners being thrown into the works. Such unkempt attempts could either emanate from vicious competitors or from those you step on their toes while exercising your vocation. The Guardian Post has lived and is still living all these.

The most challenging challenge faced by The Guardian Post and certainly by any other local daily is that to always furnish the public with fresh news. The duty to furnish the public with fresh news is a social contract between the news organ and the reader. By taking the long leap from a weekly to a daily means that the workload in the dual contract increases. We are by this challenge condemned to quench the ever-increasing taste of the public to consume our product.

The Guardian Post understands the frustration of its reader who storms the newsstand one morning but is told that their darling newspaper is not available. It can only be described as deception and abuse of confidence. We are therefore faced with the challenge of shunning any such occurrence.

Away from the preponderant role of the media to educate, entertain, inform and reform, The Guardian Post as a daily is most confronted with the challenge to identify what its readers want. In a multi-ethnic society like Cameroon where there exist diverse choices of likes and dislikes, the task of our newspaper to satisfy everyone’s demand becomes more herculean.

A smart newspaper editor would however move so fast to identify this asset and cage it in his locker. Judging from the daily market surveys rendered by news vendors across the country, The Guardian Post, can be said to have gained sufficient understanding of this formula.

One of the most challenging tasks that editors of all daily newspapers would always testify of is the task to fill the pages of the newspaper with news-worthy information. That task becomes more daunting in a society like ours where picking a government advert by a private newspaper is equivalent to asking a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. The newspaper is therefore bound to recruit as many reporters in all ten regions of the triangle who will furnish the editorial desk with daily happenings so as to fill the spaces that would have been occupied by adverts.

Recruiting these reporters and editors means more financial burden but with fewer or no adverts. We are therefore condemned to satisfy our readers with their most desired interest; news and not adverts. It may be consoling to the readers, but discomforting to the management of the newspaper since these adverts are indispensable in the life of the news organ. “Mais, on va faire comment?”

Perhaps, The Guardian Post may not have assumed its present position today, but for its ability to keep the basic canons of journalism intact. As the leading English language newspaper in the country, we are confronted with the charge of respecting these ethical norms which in one way or the other are our driving force. Far from awarding ourselves the complement, the simplest way to describe The Guardian Post is that “it is a school for journalism lessons.”

This professional aspect is certainly strengthened by a meticulous but not perfect editing strength which guarantees a good understanding of our stories by readers. In an epoch when the newspaper business is becoming more competitive but ironically gaining less confidence, The Guardian Post finds itself in a battling ring with editing and prove-reading challenges.

This is a challenge that is faced by every daily newspaper even beyond international borders. According to a survey carried out by the American Society of Newspaper Editors in 1999, 35% of readers find spelling or grammatical errors more than once a week in the circa 1.400 daily newspapers that exist in USA. The same survey states that 23% of the public find factual errors in newspapers once a week.

The research is similar to another research carried out by USA TODAY/CNN/GALLUP which says only 36% of newspapers get news facts straight. These are all weaknesses identified in a modern and advanced society like the US. The Guardian Post, being a normal human entity which is not infallible, may not be completely free from such professional weaknesses.

 These challenges put together enable The Guardian Post to refine its editorial outlook to meet up with the daily demands of the noble profession.