{"id":45038,"date":"2014-09-05T11:46:03","date_gmt":"2014-09-05T11:46:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=45038"},"modified":"2014-09-05T11:46:03","modified_gmt":"2014-09-05T11:46:03","slug":"what-the-corruption-exposes-are-taking-away-from-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=45038","title":{"rendered":"What the corruption expos\u00e9s are taking away from us"},"content":{"rendered":"

So I have been monitoring social media and all the brouhaha surrounding this year’s award of the journalist of the year by the GJA. Of course such controversies are not new to award ceremonies the world over. From showbiz to academia awards and controversies have been in tandem. <\/span><\/p>\n

I remember the furore that came with the award of the late Komla Dumor as the 2003 journalist of the year. In Komla’s case, the debate was more of whether he was even a journalist in the first place to deserve a GJA award. Funny enough what won him the award -which a good number of people thought he did not deserve – was a corruption story. Well, we are in 2014 now and I wonder how those who made such arguments feel now.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is not surprising that a lot of people would clamour for a corruption story to be adjudged the best story for the year. Such stories, usually about state or government officials involved in embezzlement of funds, have almost all the news values. You name them – controversy, negativity, novelty, sentimentality, impact, status, and the list is endless.<\/p>\n

I have read Manasseh’s comments on the issue. He has saved the state millions of cedis, he put his life at high risk and a number of factors that he thinks should make him stand tall among his colleagues. Maybe he deserved it, maybe others too do. The focus of this article is not about whether Manasseh should have been given the award or whether Mabel’s article has no glimpses of an award-winning story. Its more about “The GJA Awards Ceremony and Corruption Reports”.<\/p>\n

There seem to be a general mindset that corruption expos\u00e9s should win awards over the others. This, to me, is very dangerous because exposures of corrupt acts alone will do very little to stop corruption.<\/p>\n

Did you hear the story about the corruption expos\u00e9 by ace investigative journalist Anas at the CEPS? (Now part of the GRA). I read (or is it rather heard) a story which said that unshaken were the perpetrators of the act to the extent that weeks after the expos\u00e9 they gave the bribes\/”brown envelops” they collected a new name – Anas<\/i>. So they would ask: do you have any Anas<\/i> to give? Funny, isn’t it? That is the impunity with which they still carried out their nefarious activities. And hasn’t Anas himself been frustrated severally about the lukewarm attitude by state powers to even prosecute those who were clearly seen on camera engaging in corruption?<\/p>\n

Corruption is an attitude, a way of living, a lifestyle adopted by a group of people which would require some more efforts than a journalistic expos\u00e9 of pockets of the act to change. If you contest my stance, please go back to the various places where corruption expos\u00e9s had been done. Find out what has changed.<\/p>\n

It is an act that even if the taker refuses, the giver would induce him\/her to take because we have become a country of people who love to cut corners. That’s it. If exposing corruption was so powerful a tool that it should always be given the first position, then please show me the statistics.<\/p>\n

Again, the clamour for corruption expos\u00e9s would leave other equally important areas unattended to. We live in a country where we are afflicted by stone-age preventable diseases such as cholera, malaria and the rest. In this country religious leaders have taken advantage of the ignorance of the people to feed fat on them.<\/p>\n

A country where the lady who is spotted jogging on the streets is looked at in some way. A country which has a high incidence of infighting amongst co-tenants, co-workers, families and friends. The type of journalism that would help change all these attitudes and lifestyles is not corruption expos\u00e9s. Yet such type of journalism is so crucial that if these things are left unchecked, they will continue to affect our income levels, happiness and ultimately our health. So why can’t stories which tend to induce attitudinal change also be given the number one spot?<\/p>\n

If there is any article that I would recommend for award from Manasseh it would be the one he titled “Joy FM is not for my father”. Please find that article and read. The article sets anyone who is working in a government agency or working for a private person thinking of their commitments to their works. It challenges you to the reminder\/realisation that the hard work you put into working for another person, seen or unseen, never goes in vain.<\/p>\n

Now tell me if there is any other country which needs this message better than us. My good friend Nana Boakye-Yiadom of Citi FM did a report last year on how farmers in small farming communities in the country are taking advantage of mobile technology to improve their yields. And hasn’t Seth Kwame Boateng being educating people with his features\/documentaries on the Hotline Documentaries on Joy FM? I can’t tell whether they submit all their stories but if they do, these are the types of stories that deserve being looked at not only at the categories levels but for the ultimate.<\/p>\n

Let’s also clamour for more stories which educate and empower us against becoming dupes of unscrupulous men of God (and trust me they are more than you think); stories which would empower our women to know that they are still complete, capable, able-bodied women even if they are not married yet; and stories which would bind us all together as one people with one destiny. And if this is what the GJA calls development journalism then I am all for it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Author: Kwaku Botwe<\/p>\n

Broadcast Journalist<\/p>\n

kwakubotwe@execs.com<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By: citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I have been monitoring social media and all the brouhaha surrounding this year’s award of the journalist of the year by the GJA. Of course such controversies are not new to award ceremonies the world over. From showbiz to academia awards and controversies have been in tandem. I remember the furore that came with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":21661,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[8],"class_list":["post-45038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-akufo-addo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}