The President of Private Newspaper and Online Publishers Association of Ghana (PRINPAG), Mr. Andrew Edwin Arthur has disclosed that, as part of measures taking by the past Executives to improve the business aspects of members, they initiated discussions with the CEO of Centre Of Awareness-Global Peace Mission (COA-GPM), who agreed to sign an MOU with the Association with the partnership arrangement to benefit all members of PRINPAG without discrimination.
He made this known during the swearing-in ceremony of the newly elected Executives of PRINPAG held in Accra.
Mr. Edwin Arthur further revealed that, plans are far advanced to intensify engagement had with NPA, NLA, COCOBOD and the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources to consider involving PRINPAG Executives in the placement of adverts in the various newspapers and Online News Portals.
The response he stated, has been very encouraging and that, he is expecting the new leadership of which he is part to follow up on the initiative to seal the discussions to enable all members of the Association benefit from advert placements.
“We believe, this will give those institutions better value for their money instead of the current situation where only a few media outlets benefit from same”.
The past Executives Mr. Edwin Arthur mentioned upon assumption of office, realized that, the Association did not have a Constitution but said, with a collaboration efforts from members, the issue have been materialized as the Association now has a Constitution that serves as its working document.
“The past administration with me as the President also championed the building of a credible data base, not only for Newspaper Publishers and Online News Portal Owners and their Editors, but also for all those who work with these media Establishments. This, we viewed as an important exercise for planning purposes and has gone a long way to enable the Executive Committee and the PRINPAG Secretariat have a holistic, clear and complete picture of all our members and their staff countrywide”.
He averred that, with the development of the data base, they are able to ensure that, no media practitioner working with any PRINPAG member is left out of training programmes.
“As part of improving the capacity and knowledge base of our members, the past executives of which I was the President, secured some training programmes that were sponsored by the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), the Bank of Ghana and Eximbank, which went a long way to broaden the horizon of our members in the operational areas of those sponsoring institutions”.
He assured that in the second term of office, they would focused on Business Development of their members as well as securing scholarships and Fellowship programmes for them to help build their professional capacity and to also enhance their knowledge-base.
Mr. Arthur said, one of the problems that leads to the Ghanaian media dwindling in their influence and thus suffering patronage crisis has to do with the reckless and unprofessional conduct where they decide to ignore the ethics and urge all members to always enadevour to exhibit high professional duty and strict adherence to high journalistic standards of balance, fairness and accuracy, among others.
“Another critical issue, which is dealing a blow to the growth of the media in Ghana is the manner in which the media is being handled by the Government and its media handlers. We do appreciate their efforts but the plane truth is that, they are still handling the media using anachronistic policies and strategies, which are not workable in these contemporary times and we urge them to have a paradigm shift and to engage more with the media Associations to save the Ghanaian media from falling into an abyss”.
He pointed out that, in recent times the media front has been characterized by attacks of all forms, antagonisms and chaos that portend gloom for Ghana’s freedom of speech and the development of the media but said, it is important to indicate that, anybody who feels strongly about the work of any media practitioner or institution should express his or her outrage by resorting to the laws laid down to deal with media excesses.
Source: environmentalguideonline.com