Never Say Ever

We all know it as the saying: ‘Never say never.’ My recent experience now redirects me to say ‘never say ever’ when I said to myself before never again would I touch a subject. Now I know some subjects never die; maybe even all subjects never die, so if you pledge never ever you are likely to renege on it. You will be temptingly ensnared by ‘as?m yi di ka’ (that which must be said).

Back then on April 26, 2010, I wrote ‘All hail Anas the journalist; me not yet.’ Then on February 14, 2011, rather than write something to promote cocoa product consumption, I wrote on what I thought was a major concern, collusion between state and journalism to produce a journalistic story: ‘A tiger and a headless chicken tango.’

On Monday, March 7, 2011, ‘So Anas can write too?’ headline in the Chronicle reacted to that piece I wrote. It looked like the veteran writer author had had it with my not acknowledging what many were praising as journalistic masterpiece. At that point, I thought about the Pulitzer Prize winner who had made up a story that was so good it won the prize.

Before the Chronicle piece though, on March 2, 2011, there had been a Daily Graphic write-up by an award winning columnist headlined ‘Anas and the other face of investigative journalism.’ The first paragraph included the words: ‘has played up a rather clouded concept of investigative journalism.’

Later, later, later after GJA and NMC endorsement of the ‘rather clouded concept of investigative journalism,’ on comes the MFWA to prick the ballooned ego, that the acclamation wasn’t unanimous. So now, it is MFWA which is the victim with all the chicken and catfish and whatever else that feeds on the cockroach that it has been made to become, trying to have a piece of the picking.

I am not sure if an acclaimed masterpiece is unravelling or will ever unravel, given the level of celebration of mediocrity in this motherland. You know what I miss about the newspaper content today? It is the early to mid-1970s Daily Graphic debate between BDG Folson and Ama Ata Aidoo. It was pure ideological sparring and nothing personal from what I remember. I have talked and wished advocacy for writings of columnists of different persuasions published side by side for informed discussion of issues. I don’t know if it will ever happen; but if it should happen, it should improve newspaper content.

Maybe like the Chronicle piece taking on a Daily Guide piece I referred to earlier, that kind of debate is going on. The difference is that the volume of reading material in the 1970s is far less than the exponential explosion in not just newspaper numbers but in the volumes of content, to the extent that readers have limited time to exhaust material available compared to the 1970s.

To date, I haven’t read or even heard any journalism instructor or newsroom leader or mentor tell a trainee or cub reporter who is interested in investigative journalism to go and find themselves enough masks of all types and colours to wear for the rest of their lives because they want to investigate before they can write stories. Kwame Nkrumah’s Evening News didn’t do that. It didn’t happen with Kofi Badu’s Spokesman.

I am yet to fully appreciate collateral damage of side lobbying business as reason to discredit a core business of football. I am still waiting for evidence of a GFA chairman taking bribe so that the Black Stars would lose a match, or he calling a player to play to lose a match. I don’t see how removing a fellow on that basis from football administration would improve the standard of football.

Others know better than I do. So I am waiting for the next time the motherland will have a daughter or son on the FIFA governing board to say it was all worth masking one’s way to cause the reckless disruption of football like the reckless coup d’etats have slowed the development and advancement of this motherland. Those who stage coup have always told us it is to fight corruption. How much corruption haven’t we had after coups? And please, let no one tell me having one of your own on FIFA doesn’t matter. It does.

The Manasseh Azure Awunis and Seth Kwame Boatengs are doing unmasked great stories with massive anti-corruption and other motherland gainful impact. I have been talking to players in the field about developing training strategies that would equip journalists with preventive techniques to reduce hazards in practice. The future, to me, is greater emphasis on finding and using new techniques that protect journalists from adversaries to deal with nobled Machiavellian end justifies the means journalism.

By Kwasi Ansu Kyeremeh 

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