An Exploration of Creativity in Selected News Report in the Punch Newspapers

Creativity is an integral part of writing which enables writers to craft unique ideas, perspectives, and narratives that engage and captivate readers. The lack of creativity or the abundant use of creativity in any text can either hinder or enhance understanding of the text. Therefore, this study is on how creativity is used in news reporting to disambiguate information. Using Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) perspectives of cohesion as expanded by Idowu (2016), this study explicated the various lexical tools like reiteration/ repetition, synonym, antonym, collocation, and grammatical tools such as reference, conjunction and substitution as journalistic tools for creativity and clarity. The study employed the mixed methods which involved both a textual analysis for the content and quantitative analysis for the percentile findings. The findings revealed that the reporter made use of grammatical features like reference having eight occurrences (40%), closely followed by conjunction with seven occurrences (35%), substitution with 5 occurrences (25%) to lead the readers aright and show clarity of the speaker’s thought. However, there was no occurrence of ellipsis. The reporter also made use of lexical tools of repetition, synonym, antonym and collocation having 46%, 40%, 07% and 07% respectively to emphasize the speaker’s points and avoid misinterpretations. The study concluded that the cohesion tools used in this text enhanced the creativity skill of the selected reporter and helped to disambiguate information by simplifying complex lexical items which might lead to misinterpretation of the text. It also encourages the public to stay informed about accurate and updated information so as to help them make proper economic decision. The study recommended that reporters should be innovative by integrating items that will aid creativity and enhance the overall understanding of any text.