Linda Tenya-Ayettey and AR Gomda
Two staffers of DAILY GUIDE were among other recipients of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) awards for excellence in various categories of the inky profession last Saturday evening.
Linda Tenyah-Ayettey picked an award for telecommunications reporting as the Chief News Editor picked one for the outstanding editor category.
This year’s annual activity, the GJA’s Silver Jubilee, was held at the Movenpick Ambassador Hotel in Accra, during which the US envoy to Ghana, Stephanie S. Sullivan, described the milestone as a huge achievement.
“This is a huge achievement for any group, but especially for one such as yours at the forefront of press freedom advocacy and journalists’ welfare in Ghana,” she said.
The US Embassy, she said, salutes Ghanaian journalists for their resilience throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.
With election season already in full swing in the United States and Ghana, she said, “Both of our nations must be vigilant in maintaining a respected, protected and accountable journalists’ corps.”
The United States, she added, values freedom of the press, and believe all democratic nations must consistently promote a climate in which journalists are free to do their work without fear, harassment or intimidation.
Chief Justice Kwasi Anin Yeboah, whose speech was read for him by a Supreme Court judge, Justice Tanko Amadu, recalled the roles played by the media towards the achievement of independence.
“Even before the birth of our nation, journalists have not just chronicled our evolution but in fact shaped that very evolution,” he said, adding that the first yearnings “for independent statehood were given vent on the pages of locally owned newspapers like the Ashanti Pioneer and the Accra Evening News.”
He said, “We have looked to the media to fight on our behalf and I am proud, as a Ghanaian, to observe that the press has largely been up to this task.”
Ghana’s current constitutional dispensation, he went on, is credited to the contribution of courageous and principled journalists such as Tommy Thompson of the Free Press who, as he put it, “put everything on the line so that the rest of us live without the fear of expressing ourselves.”
The Chief Justice called on the media to critically examine all public transactions to ensure “that our commonwealth is not dissipated recklessly or for personal gain but rather for public good.”
The strict demand for accountability, he said, could sometimes be an uncomfortable touch when directed at persons holding positions of trust.
Newsrooms, he said, are suffused by political considerations which in his observation affect editorial decisions “and determine how stories are presented to the consuming public.”
The foregone is in direct contravention of the charge the media has to keep.
He applauded the media for their management of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The theme for the event was ‘Covid-19 and Credible Presidential & Parliamentary Elections: The Media Factor.’
By A.R. Gomda