Practicing journalism in Ghana is a love and hate affair. It is always a joy to see journalists abiding by the ethics of the profession and bringing honour to their inky fraternity.
However, a new breed of unprofessional and quack journalists, popularly called “paparazis” a term adapted from the European term referring to freelance photographers, have jumped on board, tearing apart the ethics of the profession.
Media houses and journalists are springing up almost on quarterly basis, deepening the national debate on who is a journalist within the context of liberal democracy. The growth in the number of “paparazis” is due to the fact that event organizers often provide money for transport to journalists to facilitate their work. This money serves as daily bread for the paparazis, especially those who are not gainfully employed.
The so-called journalists, numbering over 100, operate mainly in the capital city, however a limited number are seen in the regional and district capitals. Major media houses do not engage the services of paparazis, since most people working in the major media houses are professionally trained journalists who are mainly graduates from the Ghana Institute of Journalism. It is very common to find journalists employed in major news media condemning the practice and tagging it as a disgrace to the profession.
The paparazis normally belong to non-existing media houses or are used by small media houses that cannot pay for the services of professionals. This trend is important in a country where journalists at times outnumber invited guests at a function. It is common to identify over 60 journalists at a public function.
These latter-day journalists, who pose as freelance journalists or claim to belong to non-existing media organizations, have little or no knowledge about journalism. Their passion for journalism is fueled by the zeal of event organizers to dole out transport money to journalists, popularly nicknamed “Solidarity” or “Soli.” Soli, the money given out to journalists after covering an event or attending a function, ranges from 50,000 cedis to 200,000 cedis.
Event organizers usually send out a sheet that asks journalists to write down their names and the media houses they represent. After the event, the journalists form a queue to receive the money either in an envelope or placed directly in their hands. This practice has encouraged the paparazis to demand money from event organizers, since they see it as a right and not a privilege.
The modus operandi of the paparazis is to look for advertised events. The Ghana News Agency sends out a memo every morning, announcing schedule assignments. The very ambitious paparazis hop from one event to the other to net whatever is available. The target events, include the launching of new products, where there is plenty to eat and drink. It is common to see both genuine and fake journalists hanging around for 30 minutes or more after an official assignment, expecting to sign for their “Soli,” which is often concealed in brown or white envelopes. Some even fight with public relations officers responsible for the payment of “Soli” on suspicion of under payment or other irregularities. Some of them carry empty bottles and bags to carry home excess food and drink.
Surprisingly, these fake journalists are becoming very confident that they cannot hide their professional handicaps. They are bold to introduce themselves as coming from media houses which do not exist and they ask embarrassing questions during press conferences such as whether the Minister of Defense knows the budget of the Ghana Armed Forces. They eat and drink whatever is available and demand money openly.
At public functions, the smart paparazis hesitate to offer information about the media houses they represent until they double check to know which media house is not represented at a function. Then they jump into the event gleefully to fill the empty space, pretending to be a reporter from the media house. Impersonation is common to facilitate the payment of soli. Event organizers do not demand for invitation letters or identification cards before the payment of soli.
Professor Ralph Akinfeleye, head of the journalism department of the University of Lagos in Nigeria, has described the paparazis phenomena as a great loss for journalism credibility. He made the statement at the fourth matriculation of 140 fresh students into the Africa Institute of Journalism for a two-year Diploma in Communication Course in Accra. He said West Africa is suffering from an acute shortage of honest journalists who would practice the profession with great conscience.
Akinfeleye said that practitioners of a “journalism of conscience” believe that the mass media ensures public trust and therefore real journalists see themselves as trustees for the public. Acceptance of anything lesser than public service is a betrayal of trusteeship. These ethical journalists do not fear intimidation as a result of objective and constructive criticism of themselves or the “exposure of skeletons” in the closets of any of their bosses. In contrast, cocktail journalists are found at parties, marriage ceremonies, chieftaincy installations and, according to Prof Akinfeleye, “after they are heavily drunk and fed, they go back to the newsroom with heavy dressed-up and coloured news items of what did not happen at the cocktail.”
The Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), the professional body of journalists, has not been able to check this very embarrassing practice since some media houses are culpable of employing non-professionals because of their inability to offer better remuneration to trained journalists, or the desire to use cheap labor. Almost 80 per cent of tabloids and FM radio stations are engaged in this practice.
There is widespread unemployment in a third-world country like Ghana, where standards of living are the by-products of global influences such as the rise in the price of crude oil, donor capital inflow and the world market price for primary commodities like cocoa. People are not able to raise capital to start a business let alone employ professionals to work for them, and that has resulted in the use of cheap labour. Paparazis cannot impersonate doctors or lawyer, but since there is no easy identification for journalists in Ghana, it is the easy way out.
Journalists or communicators are expected to initiate and encourage participation in decision-making, knowledge sharing and empowerment in all spheres of endeavor to facilitate efforts for development and growth by individuals, groups and communities. Unfortunately in Ghana, living up to this expectation, as a journalist, requires much more determination and effort than I could have imagined before entering the profession.
I believe that the journalism or communication profession should be practiced in such a way that it would not afford non-professionals the chance to question its ethics.
The question is how do we achieve the practice of effective and honest journalism in Ghana?
