The stations
For the larger part of the post independence years, the media operated in an environment characterised by a combination of inherited colonial practices, statist ideology, political upheavals and economic depression ; the combination of these characteristics spawned a number of glaring deficiencies such as the over centralization of the media and institutional decay.
At the time this study was conducted there were three free to air television stations in Ghana namely the Ghana broadcasting corporation, metropolitan television (metro) and the TV3 network operated by the TV broadcasting network. Crystal television and Fontonfrom TV, TV Agoro are all cable networks but were not included in this study because they are not free to air and feature over 80% foreign programmes. A new company called TV Africa was launched after this study was conducted and is thus not included. Broadcasting in Ghana does not differ much from broadcasting in other parts of the world, as it is usually a case of follow the leader (the rest of the world following the lead of the western giants). We have mentioned though that countries have their peculiarities, so we begin the presentation of findings of this study by introducing the stations studied. In order to avoid repetition and to identify pertinent and common problems, the findings of this research will be grouped into the stations profile, the media personnel profile and issues pertaining to the industry.
In its preamble, the national media policy states that;
"For the larger part of the post independence years, the media operated in an environment characterised by a combination of inherited colonial practices, statist ideology, political upheavals and economic depression the combination of these characteristics spawned a number of glaring deficiencies such as the over centralization of the media and institutional decay.
Media policy stipulates that the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation be a non profit oriented, cost effective company with the government as a majority shareholder (all other stakeholders must be Ghanaian). It is to receive subvention from the government and indirect assistance in the form of task breaks and concessionary rates. The government is however forbidden from any intervention of any sort. GBC reaches over 90% of the population and is currently working on reaching the whole population. Incorporating over thirteen (10) radio stations and ten offices (one in each region) and one television station, it is headquartered in Accra, the capital of Ghana. These offices also serve as correspondents from which the parent station receives regional news and coverage of regional events. The corporation employs over 1800 people and is subsidised by the government although subsidy has been gradually reduced over the years to only the payment of salaries and the station is relying more and more on advertising for revenue. Some income is also generated from the public through television license fees. The radio section comprises of the newsroom (news in local languages, news in English, current affairs programmes) and the programmes department (entertainment, educational and sports programmes) and the television section follows pretty much the same set-up. The corporation has an audience research department, a library and archives department, finance department and a technical department .It broadcast in the six main six languages although the majority of its programmes are in English and it broadcasts for over 19 hrs per day. A typical schedule for television in Ghana, reads like any other; breakfast show in the morning laced with news, school or educational programmes, children programmes after school, informational programmes in the early evening, the main news bulletin, followed by entertainment and sport programmes. The Radio section operates three stations in the capital. These three are very different and cater to different sections of the public. The running of the radio and broadcasting outfits are very independent and are even housed in separate buildings. GBC can technically not be called a public service broadcaster because it shows commercials. It is a hybrid between public service and commercial, a role that obviously creates an awkward situation. It stresses though that it is not commercial in its outlook. The justification for this hybrid position strangely seems to be its public service nature, according to station bosses, because of its long history as the only broadcaster in the nation, to refuse advertising would have been denying the people the right of choice. It lost its sole broadcaster role in 1995 with the advent of private stations like Joy Fm for radio and TV3 for television. This would presuppose then that with the advent of commercial television to take over its advertiser role, it would revert to public serve, which it hasn’t. This according to interviewees at the station is because they are still the only broadcaster with a truly national coverage. Although policy forbids it, the GBC like all the other television stations broadcast some foreign news usually from the CNN, WorldNet or BBC.
Metropolitan television or Metro as it is called is a private station with a total entertainment focus. Part owned by the GBC and Talal Fatal, a private businessman, this station aims to provide entertainment and sports for the metropolises. Metro broadcasts a lot of foreign content including news bulletins from CNN and BBC. It broadcasts American soaps and series, Nigerian, Ghanaian, Indian and Western films and is particularly noted for its sport coverage especially the major world football leagues. Ironically, when it is not showing foreign material, Metro airs very popular current affairs and social critic programmes (Media policy enjoins private stations to broadcast public affairs programmes). It has only just recently added a newsroom to its station and currently broadcasts bits of news throughout the day with a bulletin in the evening. The newsroom was sharing production facilities with its programmes department. Under a special agreement, it broadcasts at least five hours of entertainment programmes from CBN Africa (a Christian network). Metro broadcasts in English with some of its programmes in Twi, the major local language. Newsreels are in all six main broadcast languages. It is a commercial station, relying solely on advertising for its revenue. The individuals spoken to at the station cited poor management as their major problem followed closely by lack of facilities and poor remuneration. Metro is supposed to be a joint GBC/media No 1 venture. Venture here is limited to the sense that the GBC allows metro to use its transmitters .It receives nothing by way of subvention, GBC is not even in a position to since, as we have already noted, they have considerable financial constraints of their own.
Metro thus gets by by showing already produced material from abroad (including other African countries and Asia). Metro broadcasts a total of 19 hours per day.
The third station, TV3 Network Limited began broadcasting in Ghana in 1996 and began commercial broadcasting in October 1997 as the country’s first private television station. TV3 was not only the first private station in Ghana; it is also the only one to be internationally owned. GAMA Media International (GMI) owned by a private commercial TV station in Malaysia, STMB (TV3) owns 70% of the station with the remaining 30% equity held by a Ghanaian holding company, Winmat Limited. This is illegal, at least 51% of the shares in a commercial media company shall be held by an indigenous Ghanaian representing themselves or by wholly owned Ghanaian Enterprises). TV3 is a self-supporting station, deriving its income from the sale of advertising time and the selling of time slots for independent productions. Its coverage is yet to go national; at the moment it covers the whole of the Greater Accra Region, the Ashanti Region, and parts of the Eastern, Central and Volta Regions reaching more than six million viewers. Broadcast times are in the evenings on weekdays (from 5pm to 11pm from Monday to Friday,) and all day on weekends (from 11am to 12:00am) except on national holidays when transmission is from as early as 6.00am. It broadcasts general entertainment programmes, including dramas and movies. Virtually all programmes are in English, Ghana's official language, with a few doses of vernacular.
The station is sectioned into the production department, responsible for the production of news and current affairs programmes, the magazine and entertainment department responsible for documentaries and entertainment programmes, a special programmes unit responsible for outside broadcasts and a sports department for sports programmes. The technical men form the engineering department. Tv3 aims its broadcasts at upper middle class and this is reflected in language, programme styles and general output.
The private radio station studied was Joy FM, part of the Multimedia Broadcasting Company (MBC) made up of the Joy FM in Accra, Luv FM in Kumasi, Adom FM in Tema and JOYONLINE platforms. Joy FM started operating in 1995. It is thought to be one of the most educative and diverse commercial radio stations in Ghana in what is a very competitive market; there are 11 FM stations in the Accra metropolis alone. It has achieved this accolade with its distinct combination of music programmes, phone-ins, current affairs programmes and sport. It is also well known for it's investigative reporting and exposing the rot in establishments. Situated in the capital, it reaches the whole of the greater Accra region and some parts of the Eastern and Central regions. Also targeted at the upper middle class, programmes are mainly in English and of a style deemed suitable to its audience. It also broadcasts programmes from the BBC world service. Most productions are in-house, the few independent producers there are have to buy airtime from the broadcasters and in turn persuade advertisers to buy advertising slots to generate income. This can get frustrating and has led to a lot of producers switching to the film industry.
The media people
[This] ...spawned a number of glaring deficiencies such as ... the stagnation of creativity, the repression of freedom of expression. The legacy of these years [post independence] has had positive effects, particularly in the patriotism and value for commonweal displayed by some media professionals.
It would seem the route to becoming a journalist in Ghana is a fairly straightforward one. There are only two recognised institutions for the training of journalists and these are the Ghana Institute of Journalism and the Institute of Communication Studies. Established in 1958 and at one time serving the whole of the sub-Saharan region of Africa, The Ghana Institute of Journalism has turned out several journalists and public relations people who have sustained the industry over the years and still does. The Institute of Communication Studies at the University of Legon in Ghana is an institution that journalists go for further education and specialisation. Courses include mass communication, English, communication research and advertising. There is more to be done by way of establishment of more training institutions and the harmonization of curriculum. At least 38% of practicing journalists have had some training abroad, any thing from a refresher course to an M.A. The journalists themselves usually engineer this themselves rather than the media companies.
A graduate of the GIJ is specifically trained to work in the media be it the print or broadcast media as theirs is considered a specific professional course. Training is basic and aside the core courses already mentioned, students are given the options of population communication, economic reporting, political reporting, sports reporting, broadcast journalism and advertising. There are other different modules for those studying public relations including advertising and marketing.
Students upon graduation work in any media organisation irrespective of options taken and this poses a problem because these students, although they may possess a wide range of knowledge, lack specialisation in their new departments and do not have a chance to work in their specialised areas. Graduates spoken to admit that upon entry into the profession they realised their training was not enough. Training is therefore on the job and follows that the longer a journalist has been working the more experienced she/he is. The hierarchy is therefore essentially an ageist one with the younger journalists at the bottom of the ladder. There are non-professionals in the field also, especially in radio where people are employed especially because of their voices and charisma rather than qualifications.
The calibre of journalism practised in Ghana is appreciable. Journalists are aware of the heights of the practice; they have knowledge of the latest methods and innovations in the media sector and constantly read foreign newspapers and watch foreign television to make sure their knowledge is updated. Most have been educated abroad, resonant of Featherstone's picture of third world professionals as
" Educated in world cities and have retained strong networks and lifestyle identifications with other transnational design professionals."Â
This means there is some dependency on foreign methods and practices as per their training. As a former colony, the legacy of colonialism is hard to shake and rather than employ a do- it- yourself attitude, the country relies on innovation, training and methods from abroad. This has deep-set roots and is difficult to do away with; dependency seems to be the only way nations like Ghana know. This does not only mean the importation of foreign programmes as is widely believed but even training professionals to resemble their foreign counterparts. The absence of local textbooks means that training even in Ghana mirrors foreign training. Local programme output is therefore very similar to foreign.
Delivery falls short of one's expectations considering the expertise of the industry people. One gets the impression journalists are not motivated to operate at full steam. Staffing is surprisingly a problem; most media houses are understaffed even though a new crop of journalists graduate every year. Brain drain has been mentioned as the major reason for this. The exodus of professionals to the West to seek greener pastures is a problem most developing countries face. As their training is standard, most professionals prefer going abroad where wages are clearly higher and job satisfaction is higher. Poor remuneration is to be blamed for understaffing because a notable percentage of those who stay behind choose to work in better paying non-journalistic professions.
Commercial broadcasting is still something of a novelty in Ghana as it only began about six years ago, most of the professionals who work in this sector were poached from government broadcasters or came straight from journalism school. There were lured by better remuneration, better working conditions and a smaller set-up where one can count.
As one interviewee put it, I wanted to be a big fish in a small sea rather than a small fish in a big sea, (Reporter TV3, 12TH April 2003) meaning he believed that career wise, working in smaller outfit has its benefits as one could easily move up the ranks. Personnel in the commercial sector are all invariably higher up in the ranks than their classmates in the public broadcaster stations. It would have been thought this would compromise ability but this seems to be the reverse.
In discussing their attitudes towards work and motivation, we divide the broadcast journalists into two main categories: those who work for the national broadcaster (GBC) and those in commercial broadcasting (Metro, TV3 AND JOYFM).
This research found that major differences in attitudes and motivation could be traced to the employer. I found that government employees at GBC in Accra were more lackadaisical in their attitude towards work, punctuality, and innovation. They were less enthusiastic about their work and did not see themselves in the employ in the next ten years. There were slow to solve day-to-day problems encountered in their work, preferring instead to pass it on up the hierarchy. Work is often saved for the last minute, and deadlines are often not met, meaning stories scheduled for the day cannot be used as planned. It was however noted that there seemed to be a good office atmosphere and a remarkable bond between colleagues. Reasons generally given by the interviewees for the lackadaisical attitude to work (after fervent denials of this observation) included lack of motivation arising from conditions of service. According to them, they are just as good as their colleagues in the commercial sector but are faced with frustrating problems even in going about their normal duties. Problems mentioned include low remuneration, lack of logistics with which to carry out their work and bureaucracy.
I decided to find out the truth in these allegations and it was discovered that these allegations were not baseless; commercial broadcasters receive between 10% higher and one and half times what the public broadcast personnel receive.
Most of the people interviewed mentioned inadequate logistics as the pervading problem. Logistics are indeed woefully inadequate and outmoded. The newsrooms where this study was conducted will be used as an example here. All the newsrooms use Sony Beta cam SP, GBC having recently changed from Eumatic, at a time when the rest of the world is changing from Beta cam SP to digital. Going digital is expensive; one camera costs currently 33,000 dollars, to buy abroad and import, local stations cannot afford it. There are no local manufacturers of equipment to serve as an alternative, this lack of technical expertise even affects maintenance; sometimes repairs have to be carried out abroad. Editors are unable to watch all tapes prior to airing because of the editing load and the fact that there are only two (2) editing suites; this is not only unprofessional but also potentially dangerous as anything could end up on the screens. The newsroom's entire systems comprise of four working cameras (one of which is permanently at the Parliament house or the National Reconciliation Commission). Scheduled assignments take up the remainder leaving no camera on standby, reducing the chance of the station covering breaking news to almost nil. Logistics and training is not as much of a problem at the commercial stations because they are newer and the equipment doe not need replacing yet. Even then many of the journalists interviewed from these stations said equipment were beginning to show signs of ageing and that steps should be taken to replace them before they break down or become completely obsolete. When it comes to making do with logistics, the commercial broadcasters are achieving just as much on far less. In the Tv3 newsroom, systems used are the same VHS and Beta cam facilities used by GBC. Their newsroom is about a third of the size of the GBC and there are only 16 journalists as against the over 50 working in the Accra newsroom alone for GBC. A fact that works to their advantage however is that their coverage area is smaller and therefore they can concentrate on gathering news in that region. They have four cameras as well but use it to cover less.
This logistic problem is not the best situation given the importance of communication technology as a tool for development and hence the need to invest in it. It is imperative in today's global world that equipment used is standard. Requests for vehicles or clearance to do documentaries or follow up stories takes a long time, in some instances the clearance or logistics availability comes at a time when the said news has become dead news. The reoccurrence of these things over a period has served to lower the morale of these workers and they seem to have given up.
Majority of those interviewed also mentioned training as a problem. They said proper training (more practical than theoretical) is needed in the schools and more refresher courses were needed to update their knowledge and equip them with the much-needed skills in today's ever-changing communication atmosphere.
What we need is more practical experience, during training, more practical work will help us a lot; we should be out there in the field more than in the classroom learning theoriesÂ(show editor ,GBC, 15TH April 2003)
At present, during a year out, journalism students can spend a maximum of two months at at least four different places. That is not good enough, it takes a long time to adapt and you leave just as you are beginning to settle in and learn.Â(Metro, 19th April 2003) They also advocated the computerisation of the newsrooms (with its attendant training). At present reports are still hand written and queued for a secretary to type up at GBC although there are some self-use computer facilities available at joy and Tv3.
Interviewees from the technical departments advocated the streamlining of activities and the slashing of employee numbers to ensure effectiveness. In the case of the GBC, a thousand eight hundred personnel is too much for any one organisation especially one that only operates one television and thirteen radio stations .It is common to find employees sitting idle all day because there is simply nothing to do. An employee at the engineering department told me .We are not idling because lazy, all the machines we need to work have broken down, and there is simply nothing to do. It is perhaps a step in the right direction that the present director general of the GBC, Miss Eva Lokko has plans of cutting it down to a thousand.
This study was particularly surprised at archival facilities available at stations. Most of them simply record on tape and store it. This practice raises problems of space, bulkiness and practicability. At GBC, the only station with an actual librarian and library, we found out that a fire in 1989 totally destroyed the archive tapes dating from 1935 when Ghana broadcasting first began. These had not been backed up meaning these have been lost forever. The national broadcaster now has to borrow old material from BBC when needed. A new premise has been secured for it but by the time all the tapes were moved in it was almost full. According to the librarian, tapes are reused making nonsense of the reason for archiving in the first place. There are no previewing facilities available in the library. This is because the tapes are expensive and old tapes are hardly ever used. Asked why more portable storage like microfiches and CD-ROM are not used, he seemed as frustrated as we were surprised and said he has written proposal upon proposal and was now just about ready to give up. He contended that old technology was costing the corporation more in wasted time and inefficiency.
Another department I got a strong reaction from was the audience research department of the GBC (it is the only one of its kind apart from the one-off media survey by marketing companies). Made up of 4 people and 1 telephone line (shared with another department), these people are expected to research what the public wants and what they think of programmes but with the problems with logistics and other issues already mentioned, the research is not done most of the time. According to the personnel, even when they manage to conduct an audience research, the results are not implemented greatly reducing morale.
The issue of gender imbalance is prevalent in developing countries, as with most industries in Ghana, women are under represented, working mainly as reporters or newscasters/announcers. The director general is the first woman in her position and its hoped steps will be taken to gradually correct the gender imbalance. The technical side is largely male dominated.
Most of the research carried out in these stations was in the newsrooms. News is certainly an institution in broadcasting and it is no different here. Although some interviewees were from other sectors, the newsroom was chosen because news is a whole production on its own and is done on a daily basis. It would therefore make for interesting observation, which it did.
Information gathering seems to the biggest headache for the newsrooms studied. As already mentioned, equipment is expensive and largely unavailable, and what is available is taken up in the various scheduled assignments of the day. Scheduled assignments involve over 60% governmental assignments: covering programmes such as sod cutting ceremonies, presidential addresses, launches, visitors to the president, parliamentarians or ministers at opening ceremonies, and school graduations. The rest is taken up by public interest assignments like donations, festivals, international conferences and workshops.
Scheduled assignments and features collectively take up over 80% of news and because of this the bulletins are generally political in outlook. Not much is reported by way of human interest and endeavour news or entertainment news (such things are considered too mundane for the national news bulletin). The sports news is fashioned in collaboration with the sports sector of the programmes department. They provide videos for the bulletin and thus save the newsroom the duplicated function of having to go out and gather their own news.
It is not all bad news though; Broadcast journalists in Ghana have a notably good working relationship with each other. Editorial meetings start with the assigning of journalists to particular assignments. It was noted that these journalists are assigned to whatever assignment is available irrespective of specialisation, as journalists are not further sectioned into areas of specialisation. Certain journalists though have over the years developed interest in particular fields (culture, health, politics, religion, and education), irrespective of their journalism specialisation and ask to cover assignments in that area. Journalists were generally given choice in the coverage of assignments. It was more of "will you like to cover" rather than "cover... ". News leftover (usually due to late editing, transportation or some other logistic problem) from the day before are looked at and those considered still relevant are chosen for the day, news in from the other regions are also discussed. Questions are thrown to all and all suggestions are discussed. Discussions are largely informal and relaxed. A typical day in the newsroom commences with the arrival of journalists by 8am. The first journalists then generally browse the dailies for items deemed newsworthy and can be picked on for broadcast. Others watch the live feeds from CNN (Cable News network), VOA (Voice of America), CFI (Canale France Internationale) and DWTV (Deutsche Welle) for breaking news that can be used in the bulletins of the day. Where it is not permitted to use videos, they simply take the story and broadcast it by sound only or use archive videos.
News agencies have been around since the beginning of broadcasted news itself. The norm is these agencies collect news broadcasters subscribe to or buy the news and in turn broadcast it. Accordingly the Ghana news agency was established with that motive and is responsible for gathering news. Few media houses if any, rely on the news from the news agency. In fact in the television broadcast media, it is rarely used primarily because it does not provide photos (videos and pictures) and delivers only local news, which the correspondents from the television stations cover anyway. It is the print media that uses most of the outputs from the news agency but they are really used as a page filler rather than anything else.
Most of broadcasting news then comes from scheduled assignments as already mentioned. These are derived from:
· Letters from companies and organisations requesting coverage
· Social functions
· Governmental releases
· Regional news received by road transport
The little broadcasters get by way of breaking news comes from incidents reported by the public and the police. Constraints already mentioned prevent them from making much of it.
The national broadcaster has a simple policy that says always cover the president. Activities of the president take precedence over everything else and in this the private broadcasters are not far behind. Visitors to the president, irrespective of who they are; whether it is the mother of the William sisters or an investment group on a reconnaissance visit are given coverage during the news. This takes at least 5 minutes to be followed by the vice president's activities during the day.
None of the Ghanaian broadcasting houses subscribes to any international news agency (TV3 briefly subscribed to Reuters but has since been cut off) thus making it difficult for them to broadcast foreign news. Over the years several deals have been brokered with several international news stations for the part rebroadcast of their content. The live feeds mentioned are closely monitored and anything deemed newsworthy is then rebroadcast. This is time consuming and not a very effective method resulting rather in the copious use of the Internet. The Internet is obviously cheaper and gives you a vast array of resources. Even so, the most connected computers found in a newsroom were six computers online at the most for joy fm and only one at GBC. The use of the Internet to access news brings with it issues of veracity as the authenticity of sources is more difficult to ascertain. Those interviewed maintained that they got round this by only using trusted well-known websites such as CNN, Reuters and BBC.
The media and politics
The reason why the political connection was thought to be important enough to deserve its own subheading has been explained in the introduction. Graham Mytton contends that it is impossible to think of politics in isolation from communication. Political power requires the possession of information about those over whom that power is exercised just as the governed needs to receive information from those who exercise power. If communication is to be defined as an interpersonal relationship involving the transfer of information, then its importance to politics cannot be overemphasised. Mytton continues to say that there is a direct relationship between the structure and organisation of communications and the character of socio-political activity. Ghana is a new democracy; it has been a one party state and a military regime at various stages in its chequered history. Politics somehow assumes a very important position in the country, right at its heart and has links and roots in all areas, be it social, cultural, international or even professional as in the case of broadcasting. In distinguishing between the types of broadcasting, this study now looks at the third and rather problematic type: state controlled broadcasting.
Popular during the war years when broadcasting was an arm of the government used for propaganda, state controlled broadcasting describe a state of broadcasting that is highly censored by the government and openly biased in the government's favour. State controlled broadcasting usually exists alone; a private or commercial competitor will destroy its objectives. Journalists have no option but to tow the government line and any deviation is punished by dismissals, imprisonment and in extreme circumstances execution. Journalists who persist in telling the people the truth had to do so in fear and often in exile, these broadcasting companies usually insist they are public service. This describes the climate of broadcasting from the late 60s right down to the 90s (in Ghana). Officially of course, GBC was supposed to be a public service broadcaster with all the ideals already discussed. In reality however it underwent a period of censorship that took the creativity out of the profession and almost killed it. Enquiring from the interviewees whether and how things have changed, the general answer was an enthusiastic yes; things have greatly improved starting from 1992 when democratic governance was introduced. It was however difficult to exercise their new found freedom, after all, the last military leader had become the president and any sudden turnaround would have left a sour taste in the government's mouth and reactions would have been bound to follow. The self-censorship of the military years thus continued even in the democratic era. Queried further that things do not seem to have changed even with this new government, which is a new political party and new president, an interviewee replied.
" It is like being chained for a long time; when you are freed you hesitate to move because you have almost forgotten how to or you are now comfortable with being in one position the whole time."Â(Reporter, GBC, 4TH April 2003)
Interviewees from the national broadcaster made a distinction between what was political and what was governmental. Given the premium Ghanaians put on politics and politicians, all occasions deemed newsworthy invariably involve a politician giving an address or chairing the function, It is the continuous reportage of these news items that may make one assume wrongly that they are political or biased towards the government. Although this was the general assessment, some interviewees conceded that it is possible to report stories and omit or down play its political side to give a fairer and more diverse picture.
Political news reporting is sometimes biased, as opposing reactions are not sought. Most political correspondents interviewed acknowledged this and reasons given included time constraint and the unavailability of the other parties. Other interviewees disputed this saying that individuals mentioned in a news item that could not be contacted for their side of the issue are given an opportunity to react later.
An illustration of the problems that the national broadcaster has because of politics was observed at the time this research was undertaken. The main opposition party, the National Democratic Congress had raised accusations of the broadcaster being biased. It claimed the GBC was treating the party unfairly by denying it opportunities to discuss and debate with government officials on issues of national interest. This accusation also reminded the GBC management and indeed the entire management of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation that as a state media, it has a duty to promote the dissemination of alternative views." The GBC will always face allegations of bias in the government's favour no matter which government is in power because of its position as a government-supported station. It will be a while before it sinks in to the broadcast media that they are indeed free and can investigate or report whatever they want to without fear of repercussions. Commercial broadcasters however do not face these problems because politics does not seem to be high on their agenda. In an increasing trend recently, there have been newspaper review segments on every television station that, to quote parliamentarian Kosi Kedem:
" has become so compromised and sometimes so scandalous that it has become a platform sometimes to peddle blatant lies and vicious rumours and for practising "muck-racking" journalism"Â.
Journalists interviewed from the national broadcaster said that the government provides a vehicle and the necessary incentives when covering governmental function compromising it non-interventionist role. It is easier to cover political events; at least, you get transportation and you know your story will be aired. (Reporter, GBC, 10th April 2003) Another added " There are benefits to be accrued in being in the good books of politicians and journalists work with this at the back of their minds."Â(Editor, TV3, 11th April 2003)
The present government of Ghana seems to be aware of this and is trying its best to maintain a good relationship with the media. At a recent function, President Kufuor reiterated that
" the government has no interest in engaging battles with the media. Rather, the government will create the right atmosphere for media practitioners to operate.
the government would continue to play its part towards the creation of a congenial atmosphere that will invigorate media practitioners and make the media flourish. "
He said the government had demonstrated its determination to work with the media ,both print and broadcast to transform the society.
He underscored the need for the mass media to use their powerful media to define the image of Ghanaians and integrate their cultures and heritage in their programmes. This is all well and good and a step in the right direction. It however doesn't include any promise of practical help and even as regard the enabling atmosphere to be created, it must be remembered that these are the words of a politician, and especially in Africa it is usual to have promises broken. Politicians will continue to court the media (providing vehicles for coverage, paying them allowances for covering stories) because of the pivotal role the media plays in politics. TV3's Malaysian owners foreign majority ownership contravenes media policy that was written after its inception. Attempts to rectify this are seen as bias on the part of the government by the owners culminating in the Malaysian company's threat to leave and sue the government. Tv3 has not shown as particular partisan tendencies so the assumption is the government is just trying to do what is right. Although this is all subtle and off the air, continued wrangling will certainly bring developments to a standstill at the station with far reaching repercussions both on the competition in the sector and on freedom of expression and choice.
