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News as a commodity
Low journalistic standards and professionalism can set a nation’s development programme backward

News as a commodity

This definition is taken from the dictionary, Oxford Languages, online.
The same source defined journalism as “the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events and people, that are ‘news of the day’ and that informs society to at least some degree”.

Journalism is also described as “the methods of gathering information and organising literary styles”.
Journalism has also been defined in a comprehensive way as the systematic and reliable gathering, processing, packaging and dissemination of public information, public education, public opinion and public entertainment.

Journalists deal with news. News is defined as an accurate, unbiased, first-hand report of an event, occurrence or situation that is of interest to news consumers and profitable or beneficial to the owners of mass and social media houses.
For a report to become news, it must be accurate, factual, balanced and evidential.

The content of a true news report must cover all sides of an event or situation.
In almost all cases, a news report must have two sides – the complainant or source of the news on one side, and the other side, the respondent to the matter at stake.

It is like a court case with the prosecution on one side, and the defence on the other.
Both sides must be heard in court presided over by a magistrate or judge.

The judge or magistrate listens to both sides and then rules on the case based on the facts and the law as they apply to the matter in court.
In journalism, the news reporter is the mouth-piece for both the complainant and the respondent or the prosecutor and the defendant.

The journalist does not go to court with his/her case.
Public opinion, as determined by readers, listeners or viewers, is the magistrate or judge.
Gathering, processing and treating information and packaging the same for dissemination to the public is what constitutes the work of a journalist.

Practice of journalism is the art of disseminating information and educating the public.
Considering the impact of the work of the journalist on society – negative or positive – makes journalism a science.

For example, communication research is part of the behavioural sciences.
A survey on how mass and social media reports influence voters of a particular area of a country, is a good example.
Assessing how mass and social media work promotes crime and violence, or otherwise, is another example.
Journalism and journalists deal with news reports.

A news report must be properly handled. In other words, information received from informants is not news until it is treated.
Treating the information is to work on it in a way for it to pass the test of a news report.

A properly treated news must be an accurate, unbiased, reliable and first-hand report of an event, occurrence, situation or idea.
It must be factual, balanced and evidential.
A news item is a commodity on the market competing with other products.

A commodity is defined as “any material thing possessing utility and exchange value that is directly consumable”.
Like a commodity that it is, news has value.
In journalism, it is called “news value”.
In economics, value is defined as the power to satisfy human wants.

Utility is the same as usefulness. It is also described as the power or ability to satisfy human needs.
The same applies to a news report. It must have utility or usefulness to the consumer.
I have devised what I call the News Value Test (NVT) as a tool for measuring the quantity of components of news and news determinants in a single news report.

What are the determinants of news?
News determinants include the following: timeliness and continued timeliness; proximity or nearness to where the media house is sited; economic or cultural interests of where the media is sited; size or magnitude of occurrence or event; significance or importance; editorial or national policy; human interest; newness and strangeness.

Components of news include the following: action; conflict, combat, war; achievement; sex and scandal; beauty and romance; novelty and humour; money and property; animals; places; names and identity; age; adventure and pathos {reports of adventure, scientific discoveries, etc); personal benefits; familiar subjects and timing.
I reckon that when a given number of news determinants and components of news are present in a report, as the case may be, the report can be said to have high news value.

The NVT can be applied to a news report after taking it through the test of reliability, accuracy, balance, fairness, impartiality, and so on.
It is important for consumers of mass and social media products to be educated and informed on what to look for when patronising those products.
Such guidelines are useful whether the product is paid for, in respect to the newspaper or magazine, or free on air, as it is the case with radio, television and the internet.

The free-on-air products have benefits for the listeners or viewers because they satisfy their wants.
Owners of the media houses also get benefits.
This is because the media houses derive revenue by way of increased advertisements or satisfaction derived from broadcasting the news products free.

News reports that have been tested for reliability and accuracy and have high NVT score tend to attract more readers, listeners and viewers.
The tendency for well-informed consumers of media products, with less reliability and accuracy status and low news value measure, is to have less patronage.

Readers are likely to skip such news items and articles in the newspaper or magazine.
With the electronic media, listeners or viewers are likely to tune off.

This is highly possible, in the present time, because of media plurality and wider choices.
If the mass and social media operators become aware that consumers of their products are well- informed and discriminative in selection of what they patronise, the media will be compelled to improve standards and quality of their products.

With the mass and social media industry, there is no Food and Drugs Board (FDA) or a Ghana Standards Authority to examine the products and issue approval permits before they are advertised in the media or displayed for sale.
That role falls on the National Media Commission (NMC).

Article 167 (b) of the 1992 Ghana Constitution states that the NMC should “take appropriate measures to ensure the establishment and maintenance of the highest journalistic standards in the mass media …”.
In Ghana today, there are some media houses that do not crosscheck information received or make any attempt to treat hints from informants before publication.

In the absence of an FDA or a standards authority for news, I expect the NMC to establish a mechanism for assessing and measuring media products for high/higher standards and quality as demanded by the Constitution.
The mass and social media are important adjuncts of the government for development, especially in a developing country such as Ghana.

Low journalistic standards and professionalism can set a nation’s development programme backward.
In his book, Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century (1990), Alvin Toffler pointed out that information/knowledge “is becoming the currency of a new super-symbolic economy, leaving behind the materiality of the industrial age”.

He added: “Knowledge itself ... turns out to be not only the source of the highest quality power, but also the most important ingredient of force and wealth.”

It is worrying, therefore, that some Ghanaian media houses in October, 2022, widely disseminated information received without cross checking or verifying its truth or accuracy.
News circulated in the mass and social media that the Western Regional minister collapsed after his driver had bolted with his GH₵17 million. The minister later debunked the publication as false and baseless.
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