Ghana Journalists Honored: 'You Made Graphic Proud'
By Ken Ashigbey
Friday, 05 September 2014 12:24
Ghana Daily Graphic
Opinion
I was starting this as a response to a post sent by my friend, Dade Alain Gbeasor, on Facebook. But I thought I should develop it into an article to celebrate all our top award winning journalists who made the Graphic family very proud.
Well, if you check, you will find that most awards like the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) awards sometimes generate controversies that divide people. But for me and any objective analyst, all you need to do is to check the work of Mabel Aku Baneseh for the period of the awards and even now and you will see her pedigree and the consistency of her quality of work.
It is common practice with some awards – especially the ones that don’t require awardees to file entries on their own, that the organisers monitor the frequency, consistency and quality of the work of prospective winners to determine whether they deserve the award.
This is also the case in most big and influential newsrooms when the need arises for promotion and reward.
It is mostly not just a one story matter. So one cannot sleep throughout the year and just write one story and win an award. We might have to explore that system. It has its difficulties and it is laborious and expensive if you want to do it right. But it is by far a better system.
Therefore, I would like all who want to measure Mabel’s pedigree to just review the work she did last year.
Just check her bylines in the Daily Graphic and the consistency of the quality of her work from January 2013 to date and you cannot but come to the conclusion that she deserves this award.
We should all know that a good journalist is one who covers specialized areas and presents reports on them in a language that all of us, lay people, can understand, as he or she explains and breaks down the jargon or technical issues. That is the journalist who is also but a generalist. I urge all to wait. A compilation of Aku’s works is coming soon and all will see her sterling works.
There might be some of you who have not read her works.
Declining reading habit
But there is the challenge of the declining reading habit in Ghana, which is so severe that even some journalists do not read. I, therefore, do not begrudge some of us trying to create and stoke a nonexistent controversy. They might not have read newspapers in a long time. All they might be doing is following the news on radio and TV.
Newspapers will continue to be the mother of all news media. They will always be around for reference, so when people go back in history, they will find that the person who best chronicled the election petition of Ghana in 2013 was Mabel Aku Baneseh of the Daily Graphic, who also reported for The Mirror and the other brands in the stable of the Graphic Communications Group Ltd (GCGL).
Congrats to all winners
Congratulations to all who won awards, but we should note that awards are only collateral benefits of our main responsibility as Ghanaian journalists, which is to hold authorities to account on behalf of the people. How are we contributing to the development of our country and continent, Africa? How are we telling the story of Africa to turn around the prejudice? Even now the West continues, with the active participation of some us, to paint the Ebola challenge as being a West African one while they will not term the Ukrainian war as a European war, or the Louisiana riots as a US wild disorder.
Even when Gaza was blazing, with turmoil in Syria, Libya and Iraq, they did not term these as one lot but differentiated them. When it came to the Israeli conflict, it was just in the Gaza strip. But with us, the Ebola is a West African scourge, so that we have some Europeans and Americans cancelling their trips to Ghana because of the so-called Ebola challenge.
We need to rise up to the fact that development is a zero sum game and those ahead of us will not want us to catch up with them. It is only by swift and forceful presentation of the true state of affairs in Africa that we can tell our story. Even salvation will be taken by violence, how much more the material world. Communication and information is now the latest arsenal in the current frontier and he who controls it and uses it to her advantage will win. We who find ourselves in the media today
have a charge to keep.
For me this is not new. We had to fight this battle once upon a time when Kormla Aphelike Dumor won the same award. There were the haters who also said all they could but when death dealt us a big blow it was shameful the way some of these same people became turncoats to sing praises. It is the reason why I say that there is no ghost. We all need to do our bit and ensure that we make a great impact before we go, no matter how short our days on earth will be. After all, today the GJA, which by the way has been consistent, has named an award after my brother.
Take up challenge, Mabel!
So Mabel, what you have to do is to take the challenge of what this well- deserved award has thrust upon you and ensure that you do your work even into the future so well that 100 years and beyond when we are all dead and gone, the great grandchildren of these current day critics will come to question what their forbears said. I am sure that you will live up to the billing. With God being your helper, the great husband you have beside you and the great team of Graphic, you will make it.
Kudos to all Graphic winners
I also celebrate the rest of the gallant GCGL award winners, Samuel Tei Adano, photo journalist with great eye for stories and who is courageous to a fault. He would freeze actions in history within his lenses and take you into the action as it happened. He has done some great flood stories and we will remember him for bringing us the Ashaiman riots in pictures. Sammy, congrats. Rebecca Kwei, another creative storyteller who brings stories to live, especially human interest ones.
She made The Mirror proud winning the MDG category award. Moses Dotse Aklorbortu, a reporter whose story tells the capacity of the Graphic stable to create gems of journalists from people who joined the company with professions other than journalism but have the passion and the zeal to excel.
Just tell Moses where the story is and he will go get it for you. He has a great sense for news. He won a prize for Small and Medium Enterprises (SME).
Multiple award winner, Kofi Yeboah: he will give Prof. Kwesi Yankah, my recent roommate, hope that writers of his kind are not extinct after all. Kofi will keep you spellbound with his literary skills when he writes. He has a passion for development stories, especially those that transform lives. The story that won him the Education category award will help produce a great neurosurgeon for Ghana, mark this anywhere that rain will not touch. He also took home the Water category award.
Seth J. Bokpe: does a good job on the auto page in the Daily Graphic, won the rural category award and was a joint winner in Telecommunication with Nana Konadu Agyemang and Ampratwum Mensah.
Then is Maxwell Akalaare: this is the business journalist with dexterity for handling anything news.
He is a prolific story teller who will stop at nothing to tell the story, including spending his Christmas in the so-called witches camp to bring us a feature. It is no surprise he won the prize for the best feature story (print) in addition to the Oil and Gas award. He was also a triple prize winner taking home the Komla Dumor Most Promising Journalist of the Year award. Graphic, your families and Ghana are proud of you.
- See more at: http://graphic.com.gh/features/opinion/30078-you-made-graphic-proud.html#sthash.5ijxbWfS.dpuf
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| Ghana journalists honored by national association. |
Friday, 05 September 2014 12:24
Ghana Daily Graphic
Opinion
I was starting this as a response to a post sent by my friend, Dade Alain Gbeasor, on Facebook. But I thought I should develop it into an article to celebrate all our top award winning journalists who made the Graphic family very proud.
Well, if you check, you will find that most awards like the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) awards sometimes generate controversies that divide people. But for me and any objective analyst, all you need to do is to check the work of Mabel Aku Baneseh for the period of the awards and even now and you will see her pedigree and the consistency of her quality of work.
It is common practice with some awards – especially the ones that don’t require awardees to file entries on their own, that the organisers monitor the frequency, consistency and quality of the work of prospective winners to determine whether they deserve the award.
This is also the case in most big and influential newsrooms when the need arises for promotion and reward.
It is mostly not just a one story matter. So one cannot sleep throughout the year and just write one story and win an award. We might have to explore that system. It has its difficulties and it is laborious and expensive if you want to do it right. But it is by far a better system.
Therefore, I would like all who want to measure Mabel’s pedigree to just review the work she did last year.
Just check her bylines in the Daily Graphic and the consistency of the quality of her work from January 2013 to date and you cannot but come to the conclusion that she deserves this award.
We should all know that a good journalist is one who covers specialized areas and presents reports on them in a language that all of us, lay people, can understand, as he or she explains and breaks down the jargon or technical issues. That is the journalist who is also but a generalist. I urge all to wait. A compilation of Aku’s works is coming soon and all will see her sterling works.
There might be some of you who have not read her works.
Declining reading habit
But there is the challenge of the declining reading habit in Ghana, which is so severe that even some journalists do not read. I, therefore, do not begrudge some of us trying to create and stoke a nonexistent controversy. They might not have read newspapers in a long time. All they might be doing is following the news on radio and TV.
Newspapers will continue to be the mother of all news media. They will always be around for reference, so when people go back in history, they will find that the person who best chronicled the election petition of Ghana in 2013 was Mabel Aku Baneseh of the Daily Graphic, who also reported for The Mirror and the other brands in the stable of the Graphic Communications Group Ltd (GCGL).
Congrats to all winners
Congratulations to all who won awards, but we should note that awards are only collateral benefits of our main responsibility as Ghanaian journalists, which is to hold authorities to account on behalf of the people. How are we contributing to the development of our country and continent, Africa? How are we telling the story of Africa to turn around the prejudice? Even now the West continues, with the active participation of some us, to paint the Ebola challenge as being a West African one while they will not term the Ukrainian war as a European war, or the Louisiana riots as a US wild disorder.
Even when Gaza was blazing, with turmoil in Syria, Libya and Iraq, they did not term these as one lot but differentiated them. When it came to the Israeli conflict, it was just in the Gaza strip. But with us, the Ebola is a West African scourge, so that we have some Europeans and Americans cancelling their trips to Ghana because of the so-called Ebola challenge.
We need to rise up to the fact that development is a zero sum game and those ahead of us will not want us to catch up with them. It is only by swift and forceful presentation of the true state of affairs in Africa that we can tell our story. Even salvation will be taken by violence, how much more the material world. Communication and information is now the latest arsenal in the current frontier and he who controls it and uses it to her advantage will win. We who find ourselves in the media today
have a charge to keep.
For me this is not new. We had to fight this battle once upon a time when Kormla Aphelike Dumor won the same award. There were the haters who also said all they could but when death dealt us a big blow it was shameful the way some of these same people became turncoats to sing praises. It is the reason why I say that there is no ghost. We all need to do our bit and ensure that we make a great impact before we go, no matter how short our days on earth will be. After all, today the GJA, which by the way has been consistent, has named an award after my brother.
Take up challenge, Mabel!
So Mabel, what you have to do is to take the challenge of what this well- deserved award has thrust upon you and ensure that you do your work even into the future so well that 100 years and beyond when we are all dead and gone, the great grandchildren of these current day critics will come to question what their forbears said. I am sure that you will live up to the billing. With God being your helper, the great husband you have beside you and the great team of Graphic, you will make it.
Kudos to all Graphic winners
I also celebrate the rest of the gallant GCGL award winners, Samuel Tei Adano, photo journalist with great eye for stories and who is courageous to a fault. He would freeze actions in history within his lenses and take you into the action as it happened. He has done some great flood stories and we will remember him for bringing us the Ashaiman riots in pictures. Sammy, congrats. Rebecca Kwei, another creative storyteller who brings stories to live, especially human interest ones.
She made The Mirror proud winning the MDG category award. Moses Dotse Aklorbortu, a reporter whose story tells the capacity of the Graphic stable to create gems of journalists from people who joined the company with professions other than journalism but have the passion and the zeal to excel.
Just tell Moses where the story is and he will go get it for you. He has a great sense for news. He won a prize for Small and Medium Enterprises (SME).
Multiple award winner, Kofi Yeboah: he will give Prof. Kwesi Yankah, my recent roommate, hope that writers of his kind are not extinct after all. Kofi will keep you spellbound with his literary skills when he writes. He has a passion for development stories, especially those that transform lives. The story that won him the Education category award will help produce a great neurosurgeon for Ghana, mark this anywhere that rain will not touch. He also took home the Water category award.
Seth J. Bokpe: does a good job on the auto page in the Daily Graphic, won the rural category award and was a joint winner in Telecommunication with Nana Konadu Agyemang and Ampratwum Mensah.
Then is Maxwell Akalaare: this is the business journalist with dexterity for handling anything news.
He is a prolific story teller who will stop at nothing to tell the story, including spending his Christmas in the so-called witches camp to bring us a feature. It is no surprise he won the prize for the best feature story (print) in addition to the Oil and Gas award. He was also a triple prize winner taking home the Komla Dumor Most Promising Journalist of the Year award. Graphic, your families and Ghana are proud of you.
- See more at: http://graphic.com.gh/features/opinion/30078-you-made-graphic-proud.html#sthash.5ijxbWfS.dpuf
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