**Article: "DISHONESTY OF GJA AWARDS"

As someone who had the priviledge of sitting on the GJA Media Awards Committee in 2009, I have taken particular interest in these awards, and have also questioned the role of sponsors in the running of the whole show. Coming across this article was refreshing. As to whether GJA will respond, too, is another matter! Happy reading!

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Source: Ghanaian Chronicle - Ghanaian Chronicle
from: http://www.modernghana.com/news/350439/1/dishonesty-of-gja-awards.html

The 16 th Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) Awards ceremony held at the Banquet Hall, State House in Accra on Friday, September 9, 2011, failed to pass the test of excellence and honesty in many respects.

Apart from the poor organization of the event, there were many critical issues that smack of dishonesty, and to a large extent, corruption. I wish to articulate hereunder a few of the issues that have come to my attention and hope you will publish them in order to get answers and cure the wrongs in the system.

The first issue that ought to be addressed is about money raised for the organization of last Friday's event. Almost everything was sponsored, including the venue, laptops given to award winners, drinks and many more. The only things not sponsored were, perhaps, allowances given to award committee members, plaques given to award winners, food and protocol service.

So the question is what does the GJA executive use all the huge amount of money they receive as sponsorship packages for? Why is it that in spite of the huge cash sponsorship, award winners are not given a pesewa, even when sponsors make cash donations for winners of specific award categories?

I think there is the need for the GJA executive to account for the organization of the awards ceremony. It's not clear whether accounts were rendered for previous award ceremonies (I stand to be corrected).

The second issue has to do with how an award category for the best reporter on social security was smuggled into the event. To the best of my knowledge, social security reporting was NOT part of the award categories announced by the GJA, when it opened entries earlier in the year, (you may want to refer to media publications on the announcement for filing of entries).

Indeed, just about two months ago, and long after entries for the 2010 GJA Awards had been closed, the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) announced (published in the media) that it would sponsor a GJA Award category on social security reporting for next year. The understanding is that journalists who cover the social security issues this year will have their stories accessed for the GJA Awards in 2012.

So how come an award was given to someone in that category last Friday. It was no wonder that the citation accompanying that award did not cite a specific story that the award winning journalist did, that earned him that grand title just as in the case of all the other categories.

The citation just made reference to the fact that the award winning journalist had been doing follow-up stories on social security.

If SSNIT wanted to show appreciation to a reporter who covers the social security beat,

Management could have simply called the reporter to the SSNIT headquarters to do that, and not to use a GJA platform for the celebration of journalism excellence for that purpose.

The fact that the social security award category was not opened for all to contest was very unfair, and indeed, corruption to allow anyone to carry a GJA plaque and title for that. The GJA must come clean on this.

Another award category that smacks of dishonesty is how someone was adjudged the best reporter for sports, but when everything was done and the list of award winners collated, that award winner was deprived of his hard earned prize, under very strange and inexplicable reasons. How could the GJA on one hand give award to a journalist for a category that was not opened for competition, and on the other hand, deprive another who genuinely won a competitive category. Is that how GJA celebrates journalism excellence?

The third issue that reeks of dishonesty regarding the awards is about the education category. How can one award be given to two different winners. Wherein then lies competition and excellence? Excellence requires that although many reporters might have submitted very good stories, only one of them is adjudged the best.

Consider this scenario. Five persons work on just one story, and one person works on another story. Now, the two stories are considered to be very good but only one must emerge as the best. Surely, to give the award to the person who worked alone, rather than make it a joint award with five other reporters, is a logic that is not far-fetched. Why then should that reporter have to share the prize with a whole team of reporters? Favouritism?

It will also be very interesting to find out from the GJA why the Government Statistician, Dr Grace Bediako used the platform of the 15 th GJA Awards ceremony last year to announce that the Ghana Statistical Service would give two awards for the best journalist and media organization that performed most creditably in the coverage of the 2010 Population and Housing Census, and yet nothing of the sort took place. The GJA must explain.

The intention to raise these issues is not to call the integrity of the GJA executive to question, rather it is to ensure that the GJA Awards remain a celebration of journalism excellence and not dishonesty.

Thank you.
Thomas Tetteh
(Freelance journalist)
thomas.tetteh AT yahoo.com

Ghana's Media Practitioners Must lose Themselves to Africa's Integration March!

"until Ghanaians begin to lose themselves to the rhythm of the African integration march, they will consign their progeny to an inexcusable fate they could have avoided. African integration will not work without a concerted effort by all—citizens and especially media alike—holding the policy-makers of these groupings accountable. 

Much of the time, citizens are keen to work for them because of the good money that is offered, forgetting that the benefits and good salary are the bonus of hard work in helping make a contribution towards the betterment of generations unborn.

As I write this in the aftermath of another successful GJA Media Awards, I cannot help but also bow my head down in shame on how despite the centrality of Ghana in African integration—thanks to Dr. Kwame Nkrumah—Ghanaian media practitioners seem to be waiting for some external actor to sponsor an AU reporting award before they start writing about the AU or ECOWAS! Where is civil society on this issue? Where, indeed, are the media practitioners who need to be asking why such an award is not part of the categories?

Ghana is much more than the politicking of the NPP and NDC, and I daresay we do not have to wait for the CPP to emerge as a fully-fledged third force before we start talking, and taking seriously what the AU and ECOWAS do. The triple responsibility that Ghanaians bear of being citizens of Ghana, ECOWAS community citizens and AUfrican citizens ought to awaken them to the imperative and necessity of capitalizing on both the months of May and September to give vent to the AUfrican personality the continent so desperately needs."

from: http://african-union-citizen.blogspot.com/2011/09/of-9th-11th-and-21st-september-or.html

Presentation on New Media Tools in Africa's Development (AUCC/Penplusbytes)

Click to Play

1. why are New Media Tools so popular, and how can they used to best effect to contribute to African development?

Of Irresponsible Journalists like Joseph Appiah-Dolphyne, and ECOWAS

It is a recondite fact that a lot of our Ghanaian media practitioners need capacity-building to be more discerning, but this has got to take the biscuit.

As I was winding down things to leave the office, I come across an article on Google News, which claims "ECOWAS ‘recognizes’ Gbagbo as president".

Now, if you have been following the story for the past three months, you would find this totally at synch against the ECOWAS option of wanting to use "legitimate force" to oust Gbagbo.

The journalist uses a PDF article on the ECOWAS website (http://www.ecowas.int) to claim that ECOWAS supports Gbagbo. This is totally mischievous. The PDF article is dated 6 June, 2010 -- many months before the whole crisis exploded.

The link he refers to can be downloaded here: http://www.ecowas.int/publications/en/ecowas_unit/Ecowas-National-Unit-Directory.pdf

An old article about a then-legitimate leader many months ago is in no way an endorsement by ECOWAS of Gbagbo as the President of Cote d'Ivoire.

Joseph Appiah-Dolphyne must come again!!

The Hunt for Blue...October, or a tale of Desperately Seeking @ghanapolice on Twitter!

It all began on 26 October, when a Ghanaian tweep mentioned something about Ghana Police being on twitter.

 

Quizzed, I followed through a few links and realised they were on the @ghanapolice address. They had asked a question about community policing, and tips to assist. They appeared to be following only a few people. So I decided to follow.

 

Last week, I gave the Ghana Police Service (0302.773.900) a call, and explained my reason for calling. The lady at the other side was very empathetic, and decided to give me the number of no less than DSP Kwesi Ofori, Director of the Public Affairs Department (0302.761.274). When I called, he thought it was Joy FM waiting to speak with him for an interview. He suggested I call him back in 30 minutes.

 

I decided to send a text instead, but I got no reply.

 

Last Thursday morning, I heard on CITI97.3fm(@citi973) that he was going to be live on-air to respond to a few questions about Ghana policing.  My question about TWITTER came late in the day, so I never got round to having it answered.

 

Unperturbed, I decided to call the Police Service's PAD again, and this time was given their direct number. Once through, the young lady was clueless about twitter, and when she asked, I heard someone say in the background "toyota??!!" !!

 

I was eventually put through to one DSP Attah who explained that he was once in a meeting in which it was mentioned that they would contract someone to set up [and manage] their twitter account. He himself was just returning from travels, so I should call back in an hour's time.

 

Minutes led to hours, which led to cases in the media that has involved the Ghana Police and inhibited I suspect any desire by DSP Kwesi Ofori-- who's been on television and the radio almost every day—to call me.

 

Oh well. I'm a patient man, and this very day, I have called Public Affairs Department, spoken with DSP Attah who says that in a brief chat with his colleague, it was revealed that a consultant had indeed been tasked to manage the @ghanapolice account. I see the Public Affairs Account really is on Facebook, and is looking great, thank you.

 

Now, the biggest test is for us Ghanaians to do several of these – and not necessarily in the order outlined below:

 

1. Call the Ghana Police Public Affairs Department on (landline) 0302.761.274.
2. Ask to speak with DSP Attah
3. Query him about the @ghanapolice twitter account
4. Query him again…
5. …and again.
6. So much so that the PAD of GhPolice will be compelled to inform the MEDIA and the PUBLIC about the twitter account, and how it can help complement the police service's work.

labels:ghanapolice; mid-week madness; ghanapolice on twitter; twitter

Why an ex-BBC Journalist-Blogger's Was Censured for his Racist Comment

There have always been racists among us, and like crime, I don' think it is ever going to go away.

I can understand how the democratisation of the e-space (read:the Internet) has enabled voices of all slants establish themselves through blogs.

But when we get experienced journalists -- like Rod Liddle, former BBC Radio 4  "Today" programme Editor make racist comments, without even realising it is racist, and thinking that his "pedigree" would sanction his comment, then the blogosphere becomes all that bit more murkier.

Still, we have to thank God organisations like the UK's Press Complaints Commission exist, for they were able to censure Liddle, explaining that his blog entry

"...had not been able to demonstrate that the 'overwhelming majority' of crime in all the stated categories had been carried out by members of the African-Caribbean community".

Now this is the UK, and I am not surprised someone's complaint brought the PCC's attention to bear on the matter. But I cannot help but wonder what would happen if something similar had been done in Ghana, where no agency exists to deal with such issues?

Not that in Ghana, anyone would necessarily write a racist comment (!), but given the degree of our political polarisation, where almost every issue is politicised, who would censure any blogger who might write a highly-biased entry that was written through the filter of (excessive) partisan politics?

Would it be the rather-pusillanimous Ghana Journalist Association? or the ever-more timerous National Media Commission(NMC).

I am encouraged that GJA information can be found under the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition, and that people can complain to the NMC, but how about a form--like that of the UK's PCC?

The way the NMC site is set up is great, but if it were made easier for citizens to complain--as is done with the better-performing Ghana's Public Utilities Regulatory Commission, then more people would feel, in my view, compelled to complain and make the Commission more meaningful.

Ghana still has a challenge with blogging--not enough of our journalists are blogging, and that cannot augur too well for our fledgling democracy as the guardians of the Fourth Estate seem to linit themselves to the 9-to-5 journalism.

Perhaps, given the state of play of non-blogging journalists, citizen journalists can begin to put sufficient pressure to ensure that the agencies that need to have teeth to make necessary censures can begin to think a bit more about working!




*This entry can also be found on http://ghana-mediawatch.blogspot.com*

Nice-Looking websites for GRAPHIC MIRROR; SPECTATOR, Shame About the Uploads!

The highlights of my Saturday reading include the very informative "GRAPHIC MIRROR"; and the Times Corporations' even-better "WEEKEND SPECTATOR". I have always had a problem with "weekend spectator", which I think is a misnomer, because it suggests that there is a paper out there--called "The Spectator"--which comes out regularly? Perhaps, if they changed it to "Weekly Spectator", that might be more appropriate?

But, that's just by-the-bye!

Point is: missing these two instrumental papers was going to screw up my Saturday reading--and screw it did. Having the relatively good METRO TV news and the just-okay TV3 was fine, but nothing beats a good reading on a wide range of subjects.

So, it's a bit strange that with all the electronic resources (beautifully-crafted website), which I suspect uses JOOMLA (open source technology), we cannot get regular updates of the papers online!

A few weeks ago, I noticed that the "Spectator" paper was now available at SPECTATOR.NEWTIMES.COM.GH -- news I gave a silent punch in the air to.

Sadly, it has not lived up to expectation.

Instead of catching up on the weekend's news I missed over the weekend, I was subjected to a hodge podge of articles--some dating two weeks ago; some a few weeks; some even two months old! All useful information alright, but not quite the weekend reading of Saturday I was hoping to enjoy!

The less said about "Graphic Mirror", the better!

It was no better!

There are many unemployed youth -- graduate and otherwise -- looking to be employed.

If these two media outlets are unable to have their weekend material uploaded ahead of time, since Saturday is certainly not the day they gather the material!!, then they should perhaps start putting out vacancies?



This post can also be found on http://ghana-mediawatch.blogspot.com