A member of the editorial board and media adviser to the Publisher of The Sun, Ebere Wabara, yesterday presented a book titled: “Media Gaffes and Essays… plus other intervention”.
Speaking at the event held at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Lagos, Katsina State Governor Ibrahim Shehu Shema noted that most of the mistakes in the print and electronic media were manifestation of carelessness, loose thinking and ignorance.
“We must be consistent in the use of either British or American English, mixing up both variants in any lexical environment shows slipshoddiness.”
The governor, who was represented by his Head of Service, Mohammed Aliyu, noted that most media audiences were stickers for purism.
“For those in this finicky and fastidious class, all slips count. Unfortunately, most people who commit these facile and fallacious blunders are persons who should know, but because incorrigibility has affected them, they have become ignoramuses.”
The governor wondered why some journalists described themselves as “media practitioners” instead of “media professionals” or “mass communication practitioners” .
He said the book was a stop-gap exercise for quick resolutions of daily grammatical challenges.
He added that most routinely committed errors in English were due to ignorance, carelessness or blatant mistake.
He noted that the book would enrich media professionals in the correct use of the English Language.
Former Abia State Governor and publisher of The Sun, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu, hailed the author for the work.
He said his pen has gone beyond the newspaper to what other people could learn from.
Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Jigawa State, Prof. Haruna Wakili, who represented the state governor, congratulated the author. He added that he was proud of him.
The author said the book was aimed at improving the use of English Language by Nigerian journalists.
The book, he said, “is a collection of the errors” published in different newspapers in the last 20 years, adding that the idea was to reduce, if not eliminate the mistakes made.