Ashanti GJA holds excellence awards

The Ashanti regional branch of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) has held an Excellence Awards to recognise media practitioners who have contributed to the growth of the profession in the region.

Held at the Dome event centre at the Rattray Park in Kumasi last Saturday, the event was on the theme: “Recognising the media as partners in National Development.”

In all,  20 individuals and institutions were recognised for their contribution to the development of journalism and the media industry in the Ashanti Region.

Also, some institutions and individuals that have supported the promotion of professional journalism in the region were also honoured on the night.

Awardees

The awardees included Beatrice Spio-Garbrah and Victor Opoku of Media General, Erastus Asare Donkor of the Multimedia Group Limited, retired educationist, I K Gyasi, Prince Bempong Marfo, popularly known as Kojo Marfo, and Justice Isaac Bediako of the EIB Network.

The institutions included the Multimedia Group Limited and the Greater Kumasi Metropolitan Area Sanitation and Water Project of the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources.

Maintain watchdog role

The Chief of Nkwantakese, Nana Boakye Yam Ababio, who was the special guest on the night, encouraged the media to continue to shed light on the ills in society without fear or favour.

While at it, he urged the media not to use their platform to malign anyone and to remain professionals in the discharge of their duties.

He said the media had a very important role to play in society and as such, the practitioners must live above reproach.

Stop attacks

The special guest also asked society to stop attacking journalists for reporting on issues and instead to support them to throw light on the wrongs in their communities.

He said journalists played a very critical role in the socio economic development of society and that without them, some communities would not have seen any form of development.

Recognition

Nana Boakye Yam Ababio commended the association for recognising and celebrating the awardees while they were alive instead of waiting for them to die before eulogising them at their funerals.

He said the recognition would inspire other practitioners to also do their best in their endeavour.

Free press no luxury

The Chairman of the National Media Commission, Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafoh, also reiterated the critical role of the media in national development.

“Media has a critical role to play in everything that we do.

Society will stagnate if there was no media.

Therefore, the role of the media is very very significant and it must be appreciated,” he said.

He explained that communication was the bedrock of all social interactions and a key ingredient in democracy as it facilitated knowledge transmission, thereby enhancing transparency.

“To reduce poverty, we have to liberate access to information and improve the quality of information,” the NMC chairman said.

Free press, he emphasised, was, thus, not a luxury, but “was at the core inequitable development.”

Mr Boadu-Ayeboafoh further said the media was crucial to democracy as it provided the basis for empowering and enabling the people to express their views and opinions and to participate in the process of governance, conflicts resolution and peace building.

He admonished those in the media to see the production of information as a “public duty and service and, thus, act with the public good.”

Objective

The regional chairman of the GJA, Kingsley E. Hope, said unlike the previous year where there was a call for nomination, the association decided to handpick some of the pioneers and budding journalists in the region who were doing exceptionally well to honour them.

He said most of the awardees were practitioners who had held aloft the torch of the profession in the region and blazed the trail for the profession to thrive in the region.

The objective for this year’s event was to “celebrate the efforts of practitioners whose works continue to reflect what journalism stands for and in so doing, inspire others to also emulate the good works,” Mr Hope said.