By: Emmanuel Oti Acheampong
The Ghana Journalists Association, GJA has as part of its activities to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the association, held a public lecture at the Social Science auditorium of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.
The public lecture which is the first of its kind was to honor the past leaders and forge ahead into the future of professional Journalism by all standards. The lecture also brought together Traditional rulers, Media Practitioners and Students, to deliberate on issues relating to the practice of Journalism and also to share in the experiences of great stalwarts like Former GJA President and Diplomat, Ambassador Blay Amihere and the Director General of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, Prof. Amin Alhassan.
Speakers at the lecture reiterate and emphasize the need and importance of Journalism in the country and the need to ensure sanity and maximum protection of the profession. The also called for pruning of unprofessionalism in the daily practice.
In an opening remarks, the Head of Department, Language and Communications Sciences at KNUST, Dr. Victoria O. Faleke expressed gratitude to the executives of the GJA for holding such an important lecture at the university. She emphasized the importance of honoring pacesetters or predecessors in one’s life and journey. She also entreated students of the department to seize opportunity of the lecture and moment to be heavily impacted by the stories and speeches of the dignitaries present.
Dr. Victoria Faleke ceased the opportunity to plead with dignitaries who were present and the National Executives of the GJA to provide a concise the department with a pedagogical studio that will enhance the teaching and learning of media studies. This she believes will help the communication get accustomed to after school professional life. She also congratulated the GJA for coming that long and staying true to their mandates and vision.
The Provost of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Professor Charles Ofosu Marfo, also acknowledged the importance of media and Journalistic practices in every government and country. He noted that,no government can do away with the media in its administration, hence the reason the media is known as the Fourth Estate of the realm.
The Director General of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, Prof. Amin Alhassan in his speech also made some emphatic statements about the relevance of Journalism both in the country and across the globe. He said “the importance of Journalism as an institution in our democracy can never be over emphasized because, it is what gave the country independence”.
According to him, the media practice has reached what he termed “crossroads” in its survival and this risk is posing a greater consequence on the type of Journalism in Ghana. He added that, to rescue journalism in the country, a lot of serious dialogue and conversations need to be had around it. He said, the model on which the historical journalism was built on, which afforded the Journalist the relevance to go out and bring the stories cannot survive in the next five years.
Professor Amin Alhassan bemoaned how the new model of production being led by technology, invests nothing in content production but rakes in more revenue through advertising and streams while the legacy media take less or little from the advertising market after investing heavily in content production.
On his stance on the Journalism profession and practice, Professor Amin Alhassan stressed that, the profession has experienced quite a number of proliferation in the country. He described those proliferating the profession as “jokers” who sit behind the consoles and microphones in radio stations and pretend to practice Journalism. He called for extensive sanitization of the profession to ensure the increase of trust in Journalists in the country most especially as the country heads to elections.
