How the Internet and new media bolstered my journalism career

Emmanuel K. Dogbevi

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi

I have not written a blog for a long time. It is because I have been taken away into other things that demand much of my time. I however hope you will enjoy this latest one. 

When I began writing, I knew I wanted to take it as far as possible. But I also knew that apart from my commitment to the essential requirements of the writing profession, like being ethical, responsible, objective, fair and fearless, there was something else that I wasn’t quite sure of.

As I trudged on the path of writing and journalism, I grew to love my job, my profession. One of the things that built the connection between me and journalism was my strong love for words - words strewn together beautifully and meaningfully. And journalism uses words, but more importantly, because journalism and writing are known to be powerful tools of transformation.

I taught myself to write in 1985. I started writing poetry. No one taught me to do so. All the poetry I have ever learned before then was in Middle School, which I completed in 1983.

However, I was introduced to writing articles; and then news, when I met Mr. Kweku Howard, who later directed me to Step Magazine, a youth magazine which first started in Kenya and later was published in Ghana as well. The Managing Editor of Step Magazine, Mr. Lawrence Darmani, immediately noticed the writer in me and offered me an internship with the magazine in 1990 and my writing career took off.

Since then I have never looked back. I have had the privilege of working with Mr. G. B. K. Owusu, the longest serving editor of the Christian Messenger newspaper – he served for over 30 years. He took great interest in me, supported, guided and nurtured my writing skills.

I have been writing in the last 23 years and have written for every single important national newspaper in Ghana. I have contributed to some foreign publications around the world as well - including in Kenya and far away Australia.  I have been on TV and radio shows including the BBC, Deutsche Welle and Radio Netherlands, but it was the Internet and new media that made my career to blossom. The Internet took me to the world!

When I began professional writing in 1990 with my internship at Step Magazine, we didn’t have the Internet. Computers were not even common in Ghana. Only a privileged few had access to computers – I was one of the lucky few that had access to computers at work. But there was no Internet, and for the most part journalism in all other forms was limited to print, TV and radio. These have their limitations, in terms of reach, but the Internet changed all that.

And despite winning a national award in 1994 - the First Prize of the Media Features on Children Award of the Ghana National Commission on Children, the impact of my work didn't go as far as it could have.

However, in 1998 three Internet Service Providers (ISPs) started offering services in Ghana.  They were Network Computer Systems, Africa Online and Ghana Internet Services, but at this stage, the service was exclusive, expensive and very slow- they targeted mostly corporate organizations and wealthy individuals, the ordinary Ghanaian was left out of the bracket.

I remember later in the year 2000, some individuals could get email addresses at the Balme Library of the University of Ghana, Legon. They could however, only access their emails at certain times. It was sort of rationed.

Nevertheless, even with that amount of progress, Internet access in Ghana was still limited, expensive and prohibitive for many Ghanaians including myself.  Only few companies and citizens could afford ‘high speed’ Internet, never mind how slow it was.

The Internet brought with it so many opportunities including online journalism and social media.


It was around this time that I managed to get my first Hotmail account – it was the most popular web based free email service available at that time. Thanks to Joyce Maxwell, an American citizen with whom I worked on the FOELINE, a magazine of Friends of the Earth, Ghana. I created my first email account on her laptop!

But as the Internet became even more popular and more companies and services started operations in the sector, access became even more common, but was still slow and expensive – and what that meant was that most Ghanaians couldn’t afford to spend lots of time online, until sometime later when the Internet became more available and affordable.

That was the time when blogging became popular with some class of Ghanaians. I created my first blog account in 2007, but forgot the password soon after, but the article that I posted on the blog became popular on the Internet.  It was an article I wrote about the side effects of telecommunication masts on human health. I later came across a blog which copiously cited this article.

I still had very little access to the Internet at that time because of cost. The only way I could access the Internet was an Internet café, where I would browse my emails quickly, search for information, print them out or put them on a floppy disk or burn onto CD.

But all that changed when I joined myjoyonline.com as an online journalist. I had unlimited access to the Internet and there was the freedom to write and I did write. There was little interference from management in professional work. I have subsequently created another blog and have received lots of feedback to my posts.

When I joined the website, there were a handful of feature articles on the Features page. One was an article culled from the Mirror newspaper asking how romantic Ghanaian men are and it sat there for a very long time with no updates, until I began posting articles.  I started posting some of my own articles – the article on the economic value of shea nut in Ghana, one on motivating health care workers, the effects of the Slave Trade on Africa’s economy, the article on gender and then the one on e-waste dumping in Ghana.

I wrote and published short stories and poems as well on the website. And then I began receiving emails and phone calls from within the country and around the world. And even at this point, I hadn’t started using social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook. I was cautious. Though I signed up for Twitter at some point, I wasn’t using it frequently and so I forgot the password!

By the end of 2008, I have established a global network of well-wishers who showed appreciation for my works and writing style which they found on the Internet.

I made friends and attracted potential employers as well. The Internet brought me to the world!

I had my first job as a ‘Fixer’ for a German TV station, Proseiben. The crew told me they got to know about me from the Green Peace in Holland. As a matter of fact, I do not know anyone at the Green Peace before then. Apparently, people at Green Peace were familiar with my works online. I later came into contact though, with its director, the South African human rights activist Kumi Naidoo. We met first in Accra at the Aid Effectiveness Conference in 2008 and later in Durban South Africa.

While before the Internet, I would not see invitation letters addressed to me, through the Internet, these reach me directly through my email account, further opening wider doors for my career to blossom.

The Internet and new media have shot my career up and brought my ‘brand’ of journalism to the world, an indication that the Internet and new media can be used for good, and whosoever wishes, can use these to showcase what they’ve got.

If we didn't have the Internet, my works would probably not reach and benefit the world.

Low internet penetration in Ghana is due to high cost

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi

Introduction

About a year ago, precisely on September 10, 2007 I wrote an article on the above subject drawing attention to the issue of high cost of the internet in Ghana, which was published elsewhere.

In that article I emphasized on the need for government to act in concert with stakeholders in the internet industry to reduce the cost of internet services, and make it affordable so that many more Ghanaians can access the technology.

On Monday September 22, 2008, in a GNA report, Mr. Eric Akumiah, Secretary of the Internet Society, Ghana was quoted as saying that internet usage in Ghana is a mere 2.7 per cent as compared to 5.3 per cent in Africa.

And according to statistics, only 1.5 million Ghanaians have access to the internet.

Again a 2007 World Bank Report on internet usage in the world cited Ghana as one of the African countries with the lowest record of internet patronage, coming behind South Africa, Nigeria, Morocco, Algeria, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Senegal.

And Mr. Akumiah attributes the low penetration of internet in Ghana to some policies and called on government to recognize the importance of a multi-stakeholder model of decision making especially on Internet Policy Development.

Mr. Akumiah’s concern has compelled me to revisit the subject.

Cost is certainly one of the major factors in hindering the growth of the sector.

Cost as a major factor has hindered most Ghanaians access to the internet, and this, in spite of the proliferation of Information Technology Communication (ICT) in the country.

Many more Ghanaians have access to mobile telephony than they have access to the internet.

Ghana’s ICT policy

A cursory glance at Ghana’s ICT policy document shows an optimistic and encouraging picture of the future of the industry, but cost still remains a hindering factor.

While the government of Ghana through this document has factored ICT into national development and is doing what it can to accelerate growth in that sector, not many Ghanaians have access to ICT, particularly the internet.

And for ICT industry players, it is a motivating document that is obviously meant to oil the wheels of the industry and propel it into its rightful place in the overall scheme of development processes in the country.

It is a known fact that the entire world today is ICT driven. ICT is the tool that drives the major economies of the world. ICT is also transforming societies and economies of developing countries including Ghana, even though at a slower pace.

The reality and importance of ICT in development, both personal and national is widely accepted in Ghana and this importance to Ghana’s development is seen in the Government’s determination to make ICT the driving force behind the society and economy.

To drive home this point the government has set up a Ghana ICT Policy Plan Committee and given it the task of developing an ICT-led socio-economic Development Policy and Plan for the country.

This policy is intended to move the economy and the society towards a knowledge based information society and economy. And this is to be achieved within the shortest possible time.

According to the document, the government of Ghana believes that ICT has the potential to accelerate socio-economic development and the government is vigorously pursuing a multi-faceted policy in the direction of engendering growth in the sector. The government is therefore, implementing the ICT for Accelerated Development policy (ICT4AD).

The main aim of the policy is to develop an integrated ICT-led socio-economic development framework for Ghana. The policy is to induce the massive laying of infrastructure for ICT, initiate and pursue consensus building with all stakeholders as well as create the enabling environment for the accelerated growth of a knowledge based information society.

Growth trends in ICT

This policy, with government’s commitment has significantly led to a tangible growth in the ICT sector, particularly the mobile telephony sector. There is however, more room for improvement.

While the mobile telephony sector has seen a massive growth and expansion within a relatively short period, the internet sector has rather witnessed a slow growth.

Available statistics indicate that as at the end of 2007 the number of mobile phone subscribers in Ghana had hit above 7.5 million culminating in a total teledensity of about 25 per cent.

Only a very small number of Ghanaians are internet broadband customers.

Statistics from the NCA shows that as at the end of the fourth quarter of 2007 there were 376, 509 fixed telephone line users, while the number of payphones dropped from 10, 824 to 9,551 and mobile telephony hit 7,604,053.

And as at March 31st 2006, there were 3,620 internet broadband customers representing a mere 0.016% of the population of Ghana.

Obviously, this low figure is due to the inability of most Ghanaians to access internet services and products because they are expensive.

Cost of internet

The high cost of internet services and products is leaving majority of Ghanaians out of the enormous opportunities and benefits that the technology offers in education, governance, commerce and research. The production, packaging and manner of distribution of internet services make the technology expensive.

And internet services are expensive because Ghana has no nation-wide telecommunication backbone for data network which makes accessing and broadcasting bandwidth for the industry a big challenge.

National ICT backbone

Thankfully, a $70m national communications backbone project was expected to be completed in August 2008. The project is funded by the Japanese government.

It is hoped that this project when fully operational would improve mobile telephony and the quality of internet services. But it is not clear yet if it would lead to price cuts.

Start-up cost of ISP

The financial capital required to set up an Internet Service Provider (ISP) business is huge. The cost of the lowest range of Access Unit (AU) equipment required to set up a small ISP is around US$10,000 to US$15,000. The cost of renting office premises can cost the range of US$2000 monthly and so on.

Licensing fees are also high for dedicated spectrums or frequencies and even for the universal unlicensed 2.4GHz and 5GHz spectrum a service provider is required to pay a fee to the National Communications Authority (NCA) in the ranges of US$500 or US$300.

The cost of purchasing bandwidth is another prohibiting factor. It would cost a small ISP about US$7000 to acquire 2MB of bandwidth for rebroadcast and redistribution to its customers and often in some cases, fiber is unavailable for termination on the location of the ISP.

Some ISPs have to depend on satellite services which cost higher than fiber.

Customer access equipment also cost a fortune for many Ghanaians. Equipment for connecting to the internet at home or even the office costs between US$120 and US$500, excluding installation charges. And monthly charges are quite high for most Ghanaians.

Apart from the cost of hiring IT professionals and other staff to run an ISP, there are not many qualified for the field. All these factors contribute to make the production cost of internet services expensive and beyond the reach of a large number of the population.

Indeed, no business can thrive and grow if its production cost is higher than how much it sells the finished product, and to survive, ISPs have to price their products in ranges that would help them stay in business.

The picture can be better

The picture we have just seen is the very reason why majority of Ghanaians cannot access the internet as much as they ought to for the purposes of personal development and subsequently national development.

The situation as it stands today is slowing the pace of national growth through the use of ICT, particularly the internet.

It is no surprise that, while a great volume of business and governance issues are carried out on the internet in developed countries including some developing countries like Rwanda, the case is not the same in Ghana, because prices in these countries are even cheaper than what pertains in Ghana. In some developed countries one can easily get internet access at home for less than US$40.

National payment platform

I am aware of a number of e-commerce websites that have collapsed because Ghanaians simply do not use the platform.

Fact is, while the e-commerce platform is supposed to make business cheaper and convenient, it rather makes it expensive and irrelevant to use in Ghana.

Some of the contributing factors though include a lack of a national electronic payment platform which would facilitate e-commerce. There is also lack of faith in the electronic payment system as a result of fraud.

This challenge is however been addressed with the introduction of the E-Zwich system.

In the meantime, though, some financial institutions, and software developers are working hard to resolve the issue of an electronic payment system for the country. When realized, this will change the face of transaction on the internet in Ghana.

Some benefits of the internet

All these challenges notwithstanding, there have been some examples of the economic and social benefits of ICT that I have been aware of in this country.

I know of a young man who after he had completed Senior Secondary School (SSS), spent time at home conducting research on the internet. His research led him to find a university in the US that was offering scholarships to African students. This scholarship included a roundtrip air ticket, tuition and boarding and lodging.

This opportunity came at a time when his father was scratching his head over how to raise the money for him to attend one of our universities here in Ghana. He is currently in the US studying for a degree. That is the benefit of the internet. But that became possible because, his father could afford the service at home.

I know someone else who used the internet at the work place to procure a training programme elsewhere to enhance his performance at work.

Even the internet cafes don’t come cheap. One has to travel from home to the cafes, and in the cafes, one is confronted with lots of inconveniences and lack of privacy. Some cafes are not fitted with cooling systems and where some are, they are often not functioning properly, making the use of these cafes uncomfortable.

If we should consider the cost of traveling to and from the cafes and the accompanying inconveniences, then that makes internet services expensive to most people.

I am also aware that most graduate students of our universities do not have to go through the hassles they used to go through in the past to work on their theses because of the availability of the internet. The internet has expanded the worldview of quite a number of people. The news comes faster and easier to access and communication links have been strengthened via the internet.

Students and pupils can do their homework on the internet, because such services and facilities do exist on the internet. The internet can also facilitate high quality teaching in the classroom as well as enrich the teaching skills of teachers.

People’s lives have been enriched through internet social networking communities and some others have gained global presence through the internet, on networks like Hi5, Myspace and Facebook.

Government must join forces

Government must work at a comprehensive programme within the framework of the ICT4D to facilitate a reduction in the cost of running ISPs to make the internet cheaper and affordable for most Ghanaians.

Government should join forces with some of the private sector players in the industry who are willing to provide their expertise and in some cases platforms to accelerate the completion of the national backbone.

It is also necessary to work together with other stakeholders towards the goal of reducing cost, but maintaining quality so that the internet can reach a great number of Ghanaians.

To achieve the lofty goals of making Ghana an information and knowledge driven society and economy is a possibility, only and only when the government exhibits the political will to do what it ought to, to make the goals a reality, or else the very basis of national development in today’s world, which is ICT, would elude us.

Because, as the fact still remains in Ghana - while the internet is a good thing, most people cannot afford it.