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Kayode Ajala is Nigeria’s foremost romance journalist. In the early 80s, he was the youngest editor of Hints, a national magazine that was a must read for all and sundry, most especially the young and the young-at-heart. Besides Hints, where he is currently the managing director, he has also edited Hearts Magazine, Sweet Hearts and Sweet Dreams.
In this interview with Daily Sun, he went back memory lane to his incursion into the pen profession and suggests the way forward for today’s journalists.

A writer and a journalist
I prefer to call my self a writer instead of a journalist. I was fortunate enough to get my first full time work in journalism as a writer in a magazine that was not strictly the normal type of journalism. We were basically writers put together to package a magazine known as Hints, as a romance publication. Before then, I had schooled in Lagos and Ogun State.

I have been in the media all my life. I have spent close to 20 years in journalism and don’t know any other thing to do other than that.
For me, the English Language has always been an asset even while I was in school. It was a subject I could handle with ease. I would say that while other students went through pains studying to write English examinations, I never did that. It was a bonus and came naturally to me. But even at that, it never occurred to me that I would end up as a journalist. I actually wanted to be a lawyer and worked hard towards achieving the dream.

I guess fate had other plans. I tried getting admission three times into the university, but never got lucky. When I finally gained admission, it was to study English. I threw myself into it and found out it was something I loved doing. I went through the trauma of graduating and finishing NYSC without a feasible job in sight in 1987. It was such a frustrating period of my life. I guess it was at that time the inspiration to write came. I was a voracious reader. I usually read a lot of newspapers then, and I would read through to see possible vacancies. But in the process of looking for job vacancies, I also read articles written by people in the papers.

I remember that in the process of reading a particular national paper, I came across an article I felt was not properly written. I also felt that if such article could have been published in a paper with a wide coverage, then I could write better. So I picked on a topic, wrote and sent to National Concord. About two weeks later, somebody came screaming to me that my article was in the paper. I read it and I was greatly inspired. I then felt that if I could write and did not have to beg for it to be published, then I could do more. That was how I found myself writing on different topics, which all saw the light of day.

After a while, it occurred to me that I could make a living out of writing, so I started applying for jobs in media houses. I did not get employment until after a year. I got a job with Hints and within a span of one year, I became editor of the paper.

I have not restricted myself to soft sell publications. I have written for The Punch Newspaper, Daily Independent, Ovation International and some other national newspapers on contemporary issues, as well as romance. I just have not gone into strong newspaper reportage on full time basis.

Lack of business acumen
Early death of soft sell publications is very high. Even newspapers have come and gone and I could give you a long list of them. There is mortality rate generally in the industry. Many things are responsible for this. One is that publishing is capital intensive. Most papers that failed were not properly funded. Many actually think they would cut corners and get to the top. But in publishing, you don’t cut corners. If you do and succeed, it means God has a hand in the success.
Most of our colleagues are not good business men. I say this without meaning to bring anybody down. An average journalist wants to publish a paper without thinking about the monetary side of the business. All he wants is for his copies to be in the streets every day or week, without much attention to how much was sold, profit margin.

One of my colleagues started a paper with about five million naira. He just kept churning out the paper until the money got finished. He disclosed later that the thought of what would happen if the money was exhausted never crossed his mind. He had to close business when the money finished because there was no money anywhere. He was being owed by vendors, advertiser and staff salaries were outstanding. It’s one mistake a lot of our colleagues make. I am also guilty of that accusation. I am very emotional about my papers. So mush so that sometimes, I over look the business side of the paper. That has also been the bane of other papers. That is why I said we are not good business men.

Journalism standard
There seems not to be a minimum standard in journalism in Nigeria, especially in soft sell. Many people whose source of wealth cannot be ascertained would just spring up from nowhere, gather a few of our people together and set up a media house. The organisation is most times not properly done and would collapse in no time. Journalism is one profession where there is no minimum educational entry point.

You see a school certificate holder that can string two sentences together and he says he is a journalist. It is not like that in other professions. You must have gone through recognized institutions and training before you are recognized professionally. The media is an all comers affair. You see a lot of empty heads. Most of the people that work with me in Hints can attest to the fact that my standards are high. I have an eye for details and aversion for people who cannot use the English Language very well. I can’t stand so called writers who can’t avoid spelling mistakes and can’t manage tenses well.

There are so many people in our newsrooms whose scripts can’t go without being doctored. These are reporters that have worked for several years. My acceptance of a journalist is one who can bring a script to me as an editor and I would pass it with little or no correction. Editors practically have to rewrite many scripts, correct spelling mistakes, punctuation errors. Yet that person carries a byline for sourcing materials for the story. Journalists must not only source for materials, but should be able to piece the information together.

My generation
I belong to a generation of journalists who churned out some of the best in journalism today. A generation that produced the likes of Dele Momodu, Femi Akintunde Johnson, Gboyega Okegbenro and Seye Kehinde. These are my contemporaries, who we were all there as reporters and became editors at the same time. I have not seen a generation after us that would turn out such thorough bred. Many journalists have resorted to blackmail in the name of practising the profession. I don’t belong to that generation.

We need to have a professional body that places a lot of emphasis or sets criteria on who should become a journalist in the real sense of the word. Although we have the Nigeria Union of Journalist (NUJ), but are we really working on who qualifies to be one of us? There must be some form of censorship. It is either we say the minimum qualification to become a journalist is a first degree, after which the person must attend a journalism school. There must be a foundation.

Soft sell and libel
I have always been guided by ethics and have stayed clear of libelous cases. Sometimes when you present the fact of a case, people would still want to absolve themselves of the blame. Due to this fact, I have found myself in court twice. I believe in thoroughness. I don’t publish without verifying my facts. I try to put myself in the position of those I am writing about. I think a lot of journalists should embrace this practice. I have been written about in the past and I know how I felt. When I read things about myself that I know are not true, it brings out unspent emotions and does a lot of damage. I like to be guided by empathy. To a large extent, that is what has kept me away from libel cases. I tell those that work with me that the more libel stories they bring to me, the more their rating drops. It goes to show that such a person is unserious.

Libel is becoming a fashionable mistake in journalism. I have sat among journalists who boast about the number of libel cases they have in court. I see them more as fools. One of the ethics of journalism is that once you are not sure about a fact, leave it out. Journalists should always try to get the other side of a story. These days, we are so much in a hurry to go to the press that we forget to balance our facts.

Welfare of journalists
Journalists in Nigeria are poorly paid. It was even worse in the past but it’s better now. We are still not there because you can’t compare what a reporter earns to that of a banker. We do more than people in other professions. A world without journalism and information is void. The truth is that media houses are not making the type of money they should make. Journalism is a business where everything is against you. Everybody owes the publisher. Newspaper agents and vendors, advert agencies would definitely owe. And when they don’t sell, they return your unsold copies that have no value.

I know of countries where journalists are highly paid. In America, some journalists earn more than the president. Many are more recognized than the presidents of some countries. One of such persons is Larry King.

The mistake a lot of young people coming into the profession make now is that they place materialism first. They believe the job is a gold mine. They want to come in because of the glamour. They begin to thrive in unethical practices and quality begins to die. At the end of the day, when they don’t get what they want, they become delirious, disillusioned and abandon the ship. Yes, there is a lot of glamour, but it is only professionalism that can make a journalist survive the tide. Success comes in a chronological order in the profession.

Dynamic Hints
Right now, I am the managing director of Hints Magazine. The publication has just been repackaged. We are back in the market much better. We now have the Hints Complete Fashion Magazine, Hints Family Magazine and Fashion and Style. There are four magazines on the stable. The consistency of Hints in the market depends largely on the ability to retain quality. The name has overtime become a factory that churns out writers and personnel. There is hardly any romance journalist in this country today, that did not pass through Hints at one time or the other. We are dynamic and change with the time and trend. The paper would be 20 years next year. That is a long time for a soft sell publication to survive.