Ghana’s media landscape is cloudy, time to consider non-profit news

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi

Image Source: European Parliament

Ghana to a large extent used to have a strong and dedicated news media that pursued high standards

of professionalism in news gathering, packaging and dissemination soon after independence and during the 1980s. These periods were difficult both during civilian and military dictatorships but most committed journalists and publishers stood true to the principles and ethics of the profession.

In their book, ‘The Elements of Journalism’, Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel have argued that changes in politics, technology, culture and taste have occurred in the world around us requiring that journalists adapt to the changes without abandoning the elements of journalism that remain fundamental and enduring.

“To survive, journalism must adapt in form and style to reflect changes in culture, politics, taste and technology. But as journalism changes, those who produce the news also must keep in mind the purpose and principles of producing accurate information on behalf of the citizens.”

Meanwhile, a cursory look at Ghana’s news media landscape today shows a cloudy, shady news ecosystem. Generally, the news is shallow, one-sided, and often not the news at all.

This situation is prevailing in spite of the fact that the country has been practicing democracy since 1992 and Chapter 13 of the country’s Constitution stipulates in very elaborate terms and unambiguous language the freedom of the press. A freedom, unfortunately that seems not to be exercised fully by news practitioners that it seeks to protect, eventually making space for nonprofessionals with no news gathering and disseminating training or skills to hold sway, creating the impression that anyone with a good voice, good looks, a command of language that might not necessarily be good and could scribble away something or anything to put themselves up as journalists.

The act is so inundating to the extent that good quality journalism has been eclipsed.

There are hundreds of private FM radio stations and several hundreds of registered newspapers and almost 20 TV stations, but not much positives can be said for particularly the news component of these organizations.

What can be referred to as good quality and professional news is sparse and far in-between. What is news in the professional sense is not often covered well, and not enough is being done to enhance news coverage in ethical and professional ways, because most of the news organizations are owned by politicians both in the ruling party and opposition. Depending on which political party is in power, its supporters and influential members are allocated radio and TV frequencies and they often seem to have the financial capital to invest in media organizations. This development has become costly for a country like Ghana that is struggling to figure out a development path, because often the facts are clouded and judgemental, and depending on whose interest is being served, the facts are skewed in that direction with little or no commitment to ethical demands of journalism and the pursuit of truth.

According to Kovach and Rosenstiel, “Journalism provides something unique to a culture: independent, reliable, accurate, and comprehensive information that citizens require to be free. A journalism that is asked to provide something other than that subverts democratic culture.”

The news organizations seem to have become unsuccessful in performing their role as ‘Fourth Estate of the Realm’, even with the obvious ineffectiveness of the country’s often ruling party dominated Parliaments to hold the Executive in check - a situation that in itself should compel the journalist to rise up and play the watchdog role with zeal.

 Parliaments in Ghana are on record to have passed into law questionable agreements and have also in some cases rushed to pass laws without adequate debate or enough information to the public. A case in point was the repeal of a 1974 law making right-hand drive vehicles illegal and the passing of the law to make genetically modified organisms legal in the country. Some questionable sale and purchase and loan agreements have also been passed without much information to the public – literally behind the back door.

What has also become common is that most of the news organizations do not seem to probe deeper into and rigorously question political decisions and actions of government and the opposition as required by the tenets of journalism. Often, it is the word of one government official against an opposition figure and often outright falsehoods are carried in the news without cross-checking simply because a public official has said so. Most news organizations have simply become platforms for propaganda and the spread of often suspicious official views.

Some companies put out misleading advertorials that get carried by news organizations without any questioning because majority of these news organizations are commercial entities and they depend largely on advertizing revenues to stay in business.

The incidence of businesses using advertisement as a control tool to get news organizations to feign ignorance when they flagrantly abuse laws and regulations governing business practices in the country is on the increase. Some news organizations that expose the misconduct of companies are denied advertising.

In the past for instance, it was common practice for news organizations to vet advertisements and if they do not meet the ethical standards of these organizations, they would reject them, but not anymore. Adverts that are in obvious contravention of laws such as the food and drugs law, the safety of children and public morality are accepted for broadcast and published by some of these organizations.

Knowing the importance of advertizing revenues to the sustainability of these news organizations, some company executives are known to regularly threaten news organizations with withdrawal of advertisements on account of publishing factual information about their operations.

Some outstanding journalists have lost their jobs for insisting on publishing the facts against the wishes of their employers, while others have had to quit their jobs because they couldn’t ignore the facts and kill stories that owners and marketing officials of the organizations do not want to see published even when all the professional conditions for doing such stories have been fulfilled.

Other journalists sometimes kill stories half way and after completion or they simply do not look into them after receiving primary information.

Ghana no doubt has very highly trained journalists and some of them can stand at par with the best in the world. Indeed, some have excelled in various beats both at home and abroad including receiving prestigious global journalism fellowships at Ivy League institutions. The bigger picture of journalism in Ghana is not a true reflection of the caliber of journalists working in the country, it is a reflection of media ownership and the large number of news organizations established not for the basic principles of journalism but for profit and in most cases for political purposes only.

That being the case, one possible way out of the depressing quagmire is to consider non-profit news. Non-profit news has been used in most developed countries to pursue what has become known as crusading journalism. Non-profits are set up for the single most important purpose of publishing the truth in the public interest and non-profit news organizations are not encumbered by the parochial interests of politicians and the corporate world and therefore exist to serve the greater interest of the public to know the truth.

Kovach and Rosenstiel say journalism’s first obligation is to the truth; its first loyalty is to citizens; its essence is a discipline of verification; its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover; and it must serve as an independent monitor of power.

They add that journalism must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise and must strive to make the significant interesting and relevant.

At this very crucial stage of Ghana’s nationhood, where in spite of constitutionalism, there is very little transparency and accountability, the need for non-profit news organizations has become more important.

The role of journalists in holding governments and their allies in the corporate world to account on behalf of the people cannot be overemphasized and no strings attached non-profit news organizations could be one of the important players in this regard. Journalists should be able to do their jobs without fear of offending political figures or business people whose interests their employers serve or on who they depend for sustainability. They should not be compelled in doing their jobs to favour any individual or groups, but the truth.

Due to the suffocating influence of nonprofessionals on news, it is so hard at this moment to get a good, fair and balanced idea of the state of affairs in Ghana by looking at the newspapers, listening to radio or watching TV. Facts are often not facts by and in themselves but because someone, most often a public official has said so. And despite the strong belief and perception of growing public corruption among Ghanaians, news reports about corruption are often denied by public officials or their assigns making journalists and news organizations look bad, and not many of the reports exposing corruption can be proven because most of these reports are either one-sided or not dug into efficiently, often leaving more room for doubt. Additionally, not many of the so-called ‘revelations’ can stand as evidence in courts of law.

While, there is consensus among Ghanaians that the journalist is important in the pursuit of a progressively accountable and transparent society ran on good corporate governance principles, one way to empower the journalist to play that role is to consider the provision of funds or a source of funding to enable not-for-profit news outlets to play that role.

Komla Dumor is gone, but what he stood for still remains

This week Ghana, Africa the world and journalism lost one of their finest, Komla Dumor of the BBC.

He was a friend and a brother. Whenever we met we called each other 'my brother'. The last time we met, we were both in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia as guests of the UNECA. 

His departure this week has left all of us hurting. Guest blogger and fellow Columbia Graduate School of Journalism mate, Raymond Bayor writes a tribute to the memory of Komla.

I'm sure Komla Dumor's death—a tragedy that we are all still grappling with—has cast our minds and imaginations in different directions. Earlier yesterday, I woke up to scores of phone calls from friends in Ghana, wanting to know if I had heard about his alleged death. I was tempted to dismiss these calls in an instant, but not when these calls were alarming. I went back and forth on phone, frantically trying to verify what looked like a wild rumor, something I'd rather hate to believe. It came to pass that in their millions, our hearts would remain seared for days and months, if not years, in the flames of the anguish resulting from his untimely departure.

Yes, Dumor attained great, enviable heights at home and abroad. He and a few others--no need to mention their names—excelled where many journalists in Ghana would easily fail today: Rising above the pettiness that's bent on ruining our media landscape. They would ask all the bold, embarrassingly probing questions, whether the issues at stake were about SSNIT or a hotel that a sitting president had interest in.

Thousands have taken to social media platforms to pay glowing tributes to one of the world’s finest broadcasters, but what is the state of journalism in Ghana today? If he was an adherent of the caliber of journalism that’s holding sway in Ghana today, would he attain the pinnacle of his career? For some of our colleagues, the line of distinction between news and hearsay is either blurred or does not even exist at all. We have become willing accomplices to condemnable acts—the very things that we must fight with passion.

Journalism is a calling. And this calling to speak can be a vocation of agony. It’s not a shortcut to fame and influence; neither is it an opportunity to settle personal scores, given that there are ethical boundaries within which we operate, whether in Ghana or around the globe. It’s time the Ghanaian journalist accepted that good journalism is no luxury. Of course, the ability to speak to power, subject politicians to the fire of accountability and pursue the cause of the larger society can never be the preserve of the fainthearted.

Journalism that's not principle or truth-driven is but a means to an end that only those who champion it know. If we all paused and reflected upon our approach to our calling to a profession revered for its nobility, especially in relation to the late Dumor's record, would our nation not be better? The image of journalism in Ghana today, unfortunately, is so battered by a strand of laziness, blatant partisanship and professional misconduct. In fact, it’s almost at its nadir.

His painful death, however sudden, leaves us with the challenge to remain relevant in an environment where the intersection of politics and journalism poses a constant threat to the latter's viability as the fourth estate. From the USA, Asia, Europe through to our native Africa, the outpouring of tributes bears eloquent testimony to his enduring legacy, his shortcomings notwithstanding. What do you and I, as journalists, stand for today? Are our actions a fair reflection of our convictions? We have, it’s sad to note, stridden beyond the contours of our watchdog role in ‘lap dogs’!

Our continent still has considerable democratic deficit, fuelled in part by the failure of various governments to commit to core democratic principles. In the case of Ghana, our democratic ‘resilience’ is nonetheless a pride we talk up so well, pretty much to the envy of other Africans. No doubt, our political parties constitute the fulcrum around which our democracy revolves.

What remains to be seen is the capacity of the media to enrich our political discourse. Beyond the obsession with what’s for or against a particular party, which seems to be the new norm now, the national interest can’t be left to fate. Whereas new parties will likely emerge in the course of time, the role of the media is cast in iron, regardless of the governing party. Not until we rededicate ourselves to the sacred values that inform the very being of the profession, we are definitely on a terminal decline. But I pray our image doesn’t get any worse.  “Hope is a waking dream,” Aristotle, the ancient Greek Philosopher, once said.

God bless Ghana.
By Raymond Yeldidong Bayor.
Email: yeldidong@gmail.com

The America I came to, three months away from home

On Columbia University campus.

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi

I have not written on my blog for a long time now. While I still can't find time due to the heavy load of academic work, I am going an extra mile this Sunday evening to write something. Something I believe you will enjoy reading and probably learn something from.

As I was growing up, I have always wanted to travel around the world - probably a dream I have just like most children do, and this dream might have been influenced by what we read in books or see on TV. And as much as that was a big ambition, it was a far away dream for someone like me. That was almost an impossibility, a mirage. Meanwhile, I have been told several times that I have a bright future, but the realities of my circumstances made that future dim.

My dream of travelling around the world took a long time to come, while I have had the opportunity to travel around the 10 regions of Ghana reporting on issues from the environment, women and children.

The realities around me almost made my hopes of travelling around the world a pipe dream.

There were times when I have vacillated between very high optimism and the very low ebbs of despair and despondency. There were times in my life that I have almost given up. Moreso, because I have chosen a profession that in my country is often rewarded only when you do it wrong. The only way I have been repeatedly told I could 'succeed' as a journalist is not to tell the truth, not to expose wrongdoing by powerful people, and to accept bribes in various forms. There are many 'journalists' who have 'succeeded' that way, by receiving bribes from corrupt politicians and crooked business people and cronies of people in power.

I have not made money from journalism yet, but the most elating experiences of my career in more than the two decades of practice were not when I have made any material gains but moments when I have alerted the public to danger, dug out and shared useful information and broke some news ahead of others. I have not made money from journalism, but I have kept faith with the profession and it appears the profession is keeping faith with me, no matter how long it took - my patience and endurance are paying off - and some of this characteristics I owe to my Late mother. May her soul continue to rest in peace. She has always told me to be patient. I was a hot-headed little boy, impatient at everything and everyone around me. I am glad I listened to her.
 
I have continued to do journalism even though I have had opportunities to switch to other careers. There is nothing I love more than writing. And indeed, the fact that journalism has the ability to do good, to speak for the downtrodden and voiceless; groups that I have a strong affinity with, probably because of my background growing up in challenging circumstances.

Today, as I write this blog, I am living in New York City, 'The Big Apple'. And I am beginning to realise that living in New York City is every American's dream."It's the place to be", someone had told me. This makes me feel lucky or even blessed.

Besides, I am not only living in New York City but studying at Columbia University, an Ivy League institution rated this year as the World's 10th Best University.

Coming to America after a whirlwind travel around the world in the last two years has been a real big change. A change for the better, I hope and an indication that 'A prophet is not honoured by his own people'. I have mostly felt mistreated and unappreciated in my own country, in spite of the evidence of my contributions to the country's good at my own expense.

In the last three months that I have been living and studying in America, I have come face-to-face with the realities that confront humans everywhere. Despite travelling around the world and meeting different people in different cultures I am still dealing with culture shock in America - details of which I would write about at a latter date.

I am having issues with the food. At one point I almost threw up in class soon after lunch and that has compelled me to do my own cooking at home these days. I eat less outside.

But more importantly, since coming to Columbia I have made some great friends, people around whom I feel very comfortable and happy to be with. My colleagues in the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship and some Cluster mates at the Columbia Business School. There are other really amazing people outside my cluster who have made me feel welcome. Some of the professors and staff of Columbia make life so easy for me.

There are these special people who have made me to feel like I was family and I can't help but mention them, the Maxwells - Dan, Joyce and their children, Patrick and Clare. I spent a weekend with the Maxwells in Boston. There are also Karen Dean and her husband Nathan Waxman who hosted me for two weeks at their apartment before I moved to campus.

I am not done yet with my transition into American society, one academic year looks like a long time, and it has only been three months.

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.

Uncertain future for online journalism in Ghana

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi

Online journalism in Ghana does have a future, but that future is shaky. As more and more people surf the Internet for news and information, the opportunities are just unlimited.

Online news sources have become some form of reliable sources of news and information for Ghanaians both at home and abroad. Indeed, the online sources have become a source of news leads to radio and TV stations in the country, and some online news sources have found the radio and TV stations useful as sources of news.

Unlike the US and the UK where online media has thrived and often threatened newspapers, in Ghana both newspapers and online news sources are struggling. They are struggling for survival as advertising revenue goes round within a small cycle of news organisations.

While most online news sources in Ghana do not earn advertising revenue, online media in the US and UK generate income enough to sustain them as businesses.

In the US, online advertising revenue reached $12.1 billion for the first half of 2009, an increase of 11.3 per cent compared to the same period in 2008.

According to a report by The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PwC US, a division of PricewaterhouseCoopers, display-related advertising-which includes banner ads, rich media, digital video and sponsorships-totalled more than $4.4 billion in the first six months of 2010, showing a significant increase of close to 16 per cent over the same period in 2009.

Despite this increase in online advertising in the US, however, some popular online news sources are shutting down.

The latest casualty is the Seattle-based political news site PubliCola.

According to the Columbia Journalism Review, despite its strong readership, the site has closed down because it was not making advertising revenue.

The Review cited founder Josh Feit saying in a post that the site is quite popular, with “more than 400,000 monthly page views during the election season and currently more than 10,000 Facebook and Twitter followers.” But that doesn’t always equal commensurate returns.

“We haven’t been successful as a business. Advertising revenue has been limited and inconsistent,” he writes.

The challenges that online journalism in Ghana is however  facing is on two fronts: it has an integrity crisis and there is no advertising revenue.

A couple of months ago, the Ghana version of South African football news site, Kickoff.com shut down because it wasn’t making advertising revenue in the country.

While a few websites in Ghana are raking in huge amounts of money in advertising revenue, they are largely lacking in professionalism.

These websites are run mostly by non-professional journalists whose main interest is to use the platform first as a business and therefore do not pursue the basic norms guiding journalism.  And journalists working for some of these online news sources do not have the independence to practice according to the tenets of the profession.

And while most of these websites claim to be aggregators, they continuously engage in plagiarism. They generate very little original content and they don’t always acknowledge the sources from where they copy news and publish on these sites. While they would sometimes credit sources for the news, they often attribute incorrectly.

Additionally, they publish libellous, defamatory and unverified information. They also do not take the sensibilities of their visitors into consideration, by publishing offending graphic images without warning.

These situations, lack of advertising revenue and integrity endanger the future of online journalism in Ghana, and that is notwithstanding the fact that a number of practicing Ghanaian journalists are beneficiaries of the prestigious International Institute of Journalism (IJJ) in Germany and the Radio Netherlands Training Centre in Holland. These international institutions select applicants every year to undergo periods of training in online journalism.

But these journalists do not seem to influence online journalism the way they should, leaving the field to non-professionals. They are not even blogging effectively! Could it be that the selection teams for these programmes select the wrong candidates?

It is however, hard to say at this point what will save the future of Ghana’s online journalism, which in its present form is very distressing.

The speech I gave at the official launch of ghanabusinessnews.com

Mr. Chairman, Special Guest of Honour, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, today marks a defining moment in the media landscape of Ghana – the medium we are launching today, ghanabusinessnews.com is a pacesetter in new media or online journalism.

Even though the site has been in operation only for a year, it has made such remarkable impacts that its visitor profile keeps growing everyday.

But that’s not the whole story. Indeed, starting any business in Ghana is like starting a war. While, the usual response one gets is the “no one has done it before and succeeded” remark, you are also likely to have some people dedicate time, energy and resources to work at ensuring that you do not succeed. Only few indeed wish you well, and go beyond the wishes to give you a hand.

To be set for success therefore, one must be prepared to take a firm posture and be prepared to fight on at any cost. The media business terrain is indeed not for the faint-hearted.

In as much as these are worrying – especially when you are starting a news medium – what is more disturbing is the present media landscape one has to operate in Ghana today.

Journalism has long been held as the Fourth Estate of the Realm because of its prestigious position and importance to the good of the wider society. But activities of some of our colleagues have slipped this dignified institution into disrepute and scorn.

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, permit me to draw your mind back to some unfortunate events in our not too distant history.

Some 20 years ago, to be a journalist in Ghana was a criminal endeavour just like being labeled a terrorist today in some parts of the world. Only few journalists dared to be critical. The situation was so bad that draconian newspaper laws were passed targeting specific journalists and media. This made it impossible to practice the kind of critical journalism that promotes a progressive, pluralistic society.

Some of the country’s journalists had to go in and out of prison for merely writing the news. There were some casualties. John Kugblenu, of the Free Press, and the newspaper publisher, Tommy Thompson were among the losses of this tyranny. These two gallant men stood up to the tyranny of the era, but they paid the ultimate price for serving society to the best of their abilities. They will always be remembered.

Against this background, it becomes unacceptable to have the kind of journalism that the good people of this country are being subjected to these days.

Journalism in Ghana appears to have been reduced to a pedestrian vocation that is open for mass participation as though there are no rules or values guiding the practice.

We all know for a fact that the general quality and depth of journalism in Ghana today leaves much to be desired.

It is evident that not only have charlatans and pretenders, with the unflinching backing of their sponsors, found it easy to hijack the noble profession for their own parochial interests, but they have also succeeded in carving a certain image for the profession. This has effectively distorted the true image of journalism in the country.

Indeed, a number of studies have shown that the media in Ghana is covering mostly what is not news at all, but ordinary everyday gossip; publishing stories in a manner that defies journalistic principles.

A recent study published by the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition which was done by Dr. Audrey Gadzekpo of the School of Communication Studies, Legon, shows that important news and information receive very little coverage, and where they are covered they are buried somewhere in the inside pages.

Indeed, the study also found that stories that should have made the headlines were given poor treatment; with most of the stories being one sided. Another indictment on Ghanaian journalism as found by this particular study is the fact that most stories lack in-depth analysis.

At the height of this rather unacceptable situation is the blatant abuse of the copyright laws of Ghana and intellectual property rights of others, even by so called leading media organizations.

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, the copyright laws of Ghana and international conventions make it explicitly clear on how to use intellectual works of others. In using the works of others, the least one could do is at least to attribute or credit the sources. But some journalists in Ghana deliberately copy material from other sources and put these up as their own. I have had occasion to raise issues on this subject right here in this hall some few months ago, but the situation since then has not changed – it has worsened.

The challenges are not only internal, there are also external factors that stand in the way of practitioners. A typical example is the refusal of public officials to provide very simple and basic information for news and analysis.

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, I had to quit my job with a good pay packet by Ghanaian standards to set up ghanabusinessnews.com. I did this because at one point, I was told that if I wanted to do professional journalism I should go and establish my own medium. Well, here I come!

I did not start ghanabusinessnews.com because it is fun; I had to invest literally what was my life’s savings, and indeed modify my lifestyle in great detail to be able to manage the website over the last couple of months.

I did this, motivated by the conviction that Ghana deserves better, and so if I have what it takes to give this great country what it deserves in line with a profession I have lived my life for in the last 20 years, well why not?

More importantly, with ICT and the World Wide Web becoming the technology of the century I was even far more convinced that by getting into online journalism, at least I could attempt in my own little way to give the Ghanaian media a good face globally as well as promote businesses and good journalistic practice the best way possible.

I am not surprised therefore, that in this short period ghanabusinessnews.com, which we are launching today has become the number one business news source on Ghana according to rankings by the world’s number one search engine, Google.

For instance, if you type the words, “Ghana business news” in Google search engine, out of 24.5 million results, ghanabusinessnews.com appears as the first two pages. This is a good start ladies and gentlemen!

I want to thank the organizations and some of the individuals who have made this event possible.

I am grateful to the World Bank, Ghana Country office for the encouragement and support. I thank Accra Brewery Ltd., for providing the drinks to refresh us all and Voltic Ghana Ltd., also for refreshing us with water.

I also want to thank the distinguished chairman of the event, Prof. Kofi Oduro-Afriyie, Mr. Affail Monney, for standing on for Mr. Ransford Tetteh who couldn’t make it as planned for some very good reasons. I am also thankful to Mr. Bright Blewu for his encouragement and support in making this programmes a reality.

Ladies and Gentlemen: At ghanabusinessnews.com, our goal is to practice journalism of the best quality that can match international standards. But above all fulfill the primary mission of the profession – to serve the public interest and do good to all persons and groups.

Thank you all for coming and God bless you.

How plagiarists, pirates and profiteers invade a noble profession

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi

The noble profession of journalism has been violated in Ghana! It has been so demeaned and scandalized beyond redemption anytime soon.

Ghana’s media landscape has been described variously, often in positive notes, but I am one person who has not been fooled by those high sounding accolades, indeed the media in Ghana has come a very long way, but it is not yet time to say ‘Eureka’!

If you ask me, I will tell you I am the least impressed with the state of the media in Ghana without batting an eye.

The media in Ghana has gone to the dogs! Yes! Professional journalism has been so emasculated it is suffocating under the wait of criminal activities, mediocrity, shallow mindedness and unfettered greed for profit in the name of serving the public interest.

I remember someone taking me on when I lamented about the level of mediocrity that Ghanaians are willing to put up with in as much as they are willing to dish out. Excellence in much of what we do is a far cry and we appear to be just okay with it.

Indeed, anyone who has gone to school and has learned the English language and or any other language for that matter could read and write. And even school drop-outs can also write. As a matter of fact, there are some drop-outs who write better than some PhD holders I personally know.

But the fact that one could write, and indeed write well, does not make one a journalist! Journalism involves writing, but more than that it is governed by rules that anyone who wants to practice the trade must be informed about.

Charlatans, pretenders, hoodlums and any greedy fellow who finds the media a lucrative business venture have infiltrated the noble profession in Ghana, are doing their own things, and justifying their actions by the profits they are raking in.

But it is so appalling, especially so, because most media managers in the country do not understand what journalism is all about. And that is where the plagiarists come in.

Plagiarism is the act of copying another person’s works in the form of writings and putting them up as your own. It is a crime punishable by the law. It is a copyright infringement, but it is so rampant in the media in Ghana.

Ghanaian publishers hire just anyone who can write, refuse to give them training but unleash them into newsrooms to practice journalism and they are perpetrating criminal activities in the name of journalism.

It is common to find plagiarized works in most publications, especially, the online publications. They take works by others and do not credit them appropriately; sometimes they claim ownership of the works, by deleting every reference to the original creator of the intellectual work.

In conversations and correspondences I have had with some of these managers, including some owners of these media they confess that they are not journalists and do not know the rules! I have even had some challenging me when I have questioned their actions in cases where they have stolen my works and that of my hard working colleagues.

These people and all others who indulge in this act should be reminded that, by plagiarising someone's works you are more despicable than an armed robber and a rapist!

My friend Justin told me this morning to name and shame these crooks and that’s just what I am doing.

You would be surprised to know that the culprits include the so called leading media houses with some very highly respected journalists. In fact, one very popular Ghanaian journalist once told me, “but we all do it!” And I told him, well, I don’t. And it is wrong.

You would find that even the nation’s leading newspaper the Daily Graphic is guilty. A Canadian journalist friend of mine told me of how a reporter of the Daily Graphic stole his article and presented it to his editor as his own. He called this reporter and complained to him, and he simply apologized.

Only recently, my colleagues and I in the office found a story we had worked on so hard in the Daily Graphic and every trace and reference to our organization in the story were deleted. The Daily Graphic did not credit us!

A website, ghanamusic also recently stole an article I personally wrote on Ghanaian musician Wanlov the Kubolor and presented it to ghanaweb as their own. I got to know when I saw the story on ghanaweb and complained to the webmaster. He wrote back to me insisting that the story was sent to him by ghanamusic and so if I have any complaints I should make it to ghanamusic. I have written two emails to ghanamusic and they haven’t shown the courtesy of a reply yet.

The Daily Guide also stole a large part of a story we did on the recent Kantamanto fire outbreak and presented it as interviews they did on the spot. But that’s not all, sometime ago, some of the Daily Guide’s reporters stole some stories my colleagues and I published elsewhere and put their names by them as if they wrote them. I remember calling the editor and drawing his attention to the crime and he promised it won’t happen again, but it still goes on.

Other publications like Ghana Review International, allghanadata, ghanatoday, peacefmonline are culprits.

Sometime ago I heard a story I wrote and published elsewhere being read on Peace FM without any reference to either me or the publication that first carried the story – that is plagiarism.

It is perfectly okay to use works by other people but the proper practice is to acknowledge the source. Indicate where you are getting it from. Some publications would do stories from radio sources and say ‘an Accra radio station’, this is meaningless.

Simply indicate the radio station you are quoting. They often do this because they do not want to in their ignorance publicise the radio station or in other instances the website or the newspaper in their medium. Well then, if these sources are not worth mentioning in your medium, then do not use materials from them!

Very soon, I will be taking some of these criminals on by heading to court because that is the right place to deal with thieves!

It is so sad the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) and the National Media Commission (NMC) or the Copyright Office are not dealing with this matter. They probably are not because it has not been brought to their attention. Well, now I have.

The Copyright Office has been dealing with pirates of musical works. Plagiarism is the same as piracy and perpetrators must be dealt with.