I was happy when I heard the president say “he will rather have a critical and sometimes reckless media rather than one that is monotonous and engages in praise.
BRAVO !!! Mr President and I really applaud you for the comments. Indeed President has spoken and it is the duty of the media to emulate what the president has said and work towards it. Some media houses are doing the critical and sometimes reckless work very well and living up to expectations whiles others are still crawling and swimming in the pool of sycophancy. Let me come down to my brothers and sisters in the creative Arts fraternity.
The question I keep asking myself is if we also living up to expectations. I’m wondering if the creative arts media/writers are really engaging in the real definition of the 4th estate of the realm. Most of us ( creative arts media/writers) have become sycophants and extremely not professional in helping the development of the entertainment sector since we had our ministry in 2013 .We have mostly engaged ourselves in matters that do not help build the industry and not make sure accountability is done.
Accountability: Accountability should be one of the Hallmarks of the creative Arts media/writers and we need to emulate from our colleagues in the current affairs stream. Creative arts journalists for some reasons not held our leaders accountable for their performance,roles ,and duties . We have left them and rather focusing on something which does not whip them into line .
It’s so sad when all we do(some ) is to indulge in words or war, less serious news and forgotten about the core issues which needs to be addressed and most importantly re-shape the industry . The creative Arts industry has some foundations , structures that needs to be highlighted and fixed and it is our duty as creative arts journalists to help highlight these issues so we can get the attention of the policy makers . Sometimes it’s sad to read from the dailys the kind of stories we promote and talk about (radio&tv) and you wonder if really this is all that some creative arts journalists can write to help promote our industry? When our fellow current affairs colleagues and fighting the good /bad course , Accountability, Probity and making sure Justice is delivered , highlighting grape vine issues from nurses, teachers , doctors ,energy ,economy. We on the other hand turn to mirror individualistic agendas , individual agenda for celebrities, highlits war of words from one celebrity to another , shun the real agenda to expose the rot, negative happenings in all the divisions (musiga, GHAMORO, ASORG, Copyright, creative arts council and the Act , film Act ,ministry/minister roles in helping the industry Ghana Actors Guild etc.
The creative Arts journalists including myself have failed to highlight and possibly make the policy markers help solve and understand your issues.
Is it not sad that the print media in the creative Arts can just boast of only two major newspapers (graphic showbiz and flex newspaper) i stand to be corrected though . The rest are what we call bloggers…. Well i arrest my case there.and just a small corner in other dailys and even that is mostly dedicated to foreign entertainment news .
I believe we need to emulate what the president and has said and play our watchdog role very well by highlighting all the bad and good deeds, be able to push government to listen to us ,be able to let government realise how important we are in national development,how we can sell our industry to be appealing to the policy maker. Is sad that we have not been able to sell our industry to governments upon governments to factor us (creative arts) into solving unemployment in the country . they repeat the same thing and expect different results (agriculture, construction, instituting special programs like Youth Employment Agencies which was established under youth employment act 2015 act 887, Youth Employment Synergy (YES) etc to help reduce the unemployment rate . We have to mirror the creative industry to convience the policy maker in this country. An Act that should be enforced and give birth to Film Authority (act 935) still lying down , creative council act- still lying down in parliament, the only secured most researched area is music and yet we cannot force the system to help execute the document.
We should discard the perception that some of us are anti government ,simply because you highlighting what has not been done . Manifesto promises should be highlighted and push/deman our share of the cake . Doing celeb stories , highlighting on soft stories is good but let’s focus and direct more attention to fixing of the foundation .the foundation is weak ,it will take strong ,firm , minds ,to build . Let’s be critical and give no room for our ministry to take us for a ride .
Kojo Preko dankwa
Converner FOCAP (foundation of Concerned Arts Professionals)
Host of kasapa entertainment
Programs Manager
Producer (morning show)
Kasapa fm
