>After the Daily Guide’s ‘Rawlings Punches Mills‘ headline last week and recalling Radio Gold’s performance (and general existence) over the elections, I have decided to turn into reality an idea that has been bouncing inside my head for awhile now:
The ‘Ghana’s Worst Journalism’ Awards.
The idea is simple. Throughout the year, feel free to point out any instances you see of bias (in favour of any party), factual inaccuracies, poor quality writing or grammatical flaws on television, radio and in our beloved-but-not-quite-so free press.
Don’t worry about clippings or recordings: if it is a printed article, then give me the newspaper, date and page, and if it is on radio or TV, then give me a date, a station and the time you heard it (roughly). I have contacts with Steadman Media Monitoring Services who are listening and recording all major media 24 hours a day, every day of the year from whom I can verify.
Nominations will be accepted between now and the 1st of December, when I will present a shortlist to vote from. Winners will be announced before the end of the year. No award ceremony just yet (maybe a small party…) but I am buying a crate of eggs this week that will sit there rotting until they are ready to go out. Each winner will receive a gold-sprayed rotten egg along with brief letter explaining to them their crimes against journalism. There is a good chance we will hand deliver these and film reactions to be played back on some national media outlet… or for our personal viewing pleasure.
How does that sound?
Here are the categories (feel free to suggest a few more):
The ‘Quit Journalism Immediately!’ Worst So-Called Journalist of the Year Award
Worst Headline – Newspaper
Worst Reporter – Newspaper / TV/ Radio
Most Biased Outlet – Newspaper / TV/ Radio
Most Irresponsible Outlet – Newspaper / TV/ Radio
Most Factually Inaccurate Story – Newspaper / TV/ Radio
Most Consistently Factually Inaccurate Journalist – Newspaper / TV/ Radio
Bad Grammar Award – Newspaper / TV/ Radio
Comments and suggestions for new categories can be posted here but kindly send all nominations to ghanabadjournalism@gmail.com.
Kobby Ankomah Graham 