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A professor based at the Asanteman capital of Kumasi has incurred the ire of journalists at that same base, resulting in the journalists victimizing the institution the professor represents by boycotting coverage of it. My compatriots, I would have wished a boycott of the person, if it had to be, and not the institution funded with the motherland�s meager resources after those resources have been drained of upwards of GH�600 million to pay congress manufactured judgment debts. It is unfair to punish the motherland by refusing coverage of such a valuable unit, a unit that consumes substantial proportions of her funds. The professor in charge of the university established to develop brain power for the scientific and technological advancement of the motherland is said to have �reportedly described journalists as illiterates� (Daily Guide, Monday, March 5, 2012, p. 10). That might have been a little stretching if the man wanted to make an observation. But just read the story. It is also written in it that �the Vice-Chancellor has angered media practitioners in Kumasi who have vowed to boycott the activities of the university.� The Ashanti branch of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) has, indeed, since announced and imposed the boycott. The said Daily Guide story continues: �The angry journalists however stated that though they would not accept any invitation to cover events at the KNUST, they would not hesitate to write about any bad incident that happens in the university. By any definition I know, that would be illiterate journalism. Paragraph one of the story states �journalists in Kumasi.� The very next paragraph has �the media practitioners in Kumasi.� That�s probably the problem. A media practitioner is not necessarily a journalist. So, if there is a media practitioner who knows not anything about the constitutional requirements of a journalist, and does not have the GJA code of ethics at her or his fingertips and represents herself or himself as a journalist, she or he will be sure to practice illiterate journalism. When journalists have scores to settle with politicians who are in many ways not that different from people who will represent themselves as journalists when they are not, I do sympathise with such journalists. I may even support their cause; especially if it is some politician using the oppressive state apparatuses to intimidate and victimize a journalist. With someone in charge of a university, I would plead a little more tolerance; not because he is above the law but because he is not necessarily seeking a personal gain like many politicians would. The professor could have taken a cue from the inaugural lecture of his fellow professor on the need for polite language, especially by public officials. He might have been a bit more cautious by, for example, qualifying the term journalist as �some� or even �many of you journalists are illiterate.� The reaction could have been a bit different. There are many journalists who will agree that there are some people who call themselves journalists but are illiterate either totally or journalistically. By not introducing some exceptions, the professor opened himself up for illiterate journalists to hide behind the real journalists to cause a boycott trouble for him. Anyway, if you say you will not honour any invitation to the university but you will make sure you will report bad things that happen in the university, it suggests that you will ensure you go to the university to investigate the bad things so that you can report them accurately. That will mean you are only boycotting things that you think will project the university positively. I can sense some mischief there; and mischief is not part of literate journalism because no journalism training school will teach one to become a mischievous journalist. If you want to stay away from the university and say bad things about it, that will be worse journalism because that will be worse than illiterate journalism since you will be saying things you have made no effort to verify and therefore will be publishing untruths. The reporting technique of enterprise journalism by which the journalist, by her or his own initiative noses around for stories of public interest is, in many ways and instances, preferable to the routine journalism of responding only to invitations. Humility is a key attribute of a literate journalist. She or he knows the job is hazardous. Being humble in no way suggests cowardice or bravado. It is that even in the face of the most unpleasant and sometimes life-threatening situations, you hold yourself together and desist from meeting fire with fire. Your humility then becomes part of your maturity by which you convince your adversary to apologize. You give them an opportunity to humiliate themselves so that they will learn to appreciate and tolerate you.