Journalism: An Honour to Dishonour

They cry #FreeSpeech, but will not relent in their indefatigable ploys to transgress and violate the laws of the land at any instance they deem necessary. They are always right and everyone else is wrong. If one of their colleagues commits a folly, which they ought to know better not to, they descend on the whole world as if they want to bring it to an end!

A lazy idiot parading as a journalist in a lowly entity allegedly breaches security instructions and films the most sensitive security premises in the country, yet when that person is arrested, compatriots in the trade rasp like vultures in confused flight to attack. They do not see reason, and any form of criticism is treated as a threat to their inalienable rights to be foolish.

Journalism is a very honourable profession, but when the principles are misconstrued and taught in a skewed manner by people who do not understand it in its pure form, then the tradition of honour becomes one of dishonour. I am not a journalist. In Ghana, I do not find journalism a profession well worthy to aspire for when there are dunderheads like the many brainless ones touting knowledge haughtily as if it was brought upon them from the high heavens. The simple truth about the continual denigration of this honourable profession is that in recent times there has been a proliferation of roadside institutes that are teaching “JOURNALISM”!

Yes, I have practised in the media space at the time when taboo stories were not discussed in mainstream publications, and yes I paid quite a hefty price on two occasions when the NDC arrested me in 2014 and 2016. I wrote about certain exposés that okro mouth journalists did not have the balls to discuss. I offered each loudmouth an equal measure of their venom and a bit extra to add to the spice when they attacked. I wrote against John Mahama after it was alleged that he had paid Steve Malorie some $500,000USD to write a dirty story about Akufo-Addo’s health in a desperate effort to reduce his electoral fortunes in the run-up to the 2016 elections, having pushed Alhaji Asuma Banda some few months earlier to sit on national TV to say that Nana could never be President. I, being an avid NPP footsoldier and member, could not allow that President Akufo-Addo, then flagbearer, be muddied wrongfully in this manner. So they shouted “gutter journalism”!

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I did not practise journalism because I was not a journalist! I was and always will be a WRITER! I wrote to defend right from wrong! I wrote what others failed to imagine and were too scared to utter! But then again, that is me, the WRITER!

Journalism in Ghana is quite rabid, if you ask me! You have the good, the bad, and the ugly, all touting free speech. Amongst them you have the dirty and unkempt, the ruffed as a sexually aroused vulture, and the fake made up ones that arrange call girls for those who can afford the indulgence. They speak in all manner of accents as if they have descended from varied levels of outer space. They are all united albeit in their relentlessness to defend the indefensible!

And yes, there are also those that will connive and maneuver in all manner to hit at any person who does not capitulate to their demands and caprices. While they play wolf in sheep’s clothing, they plot, plan, and execute character assassinations often using pseudonyms because they are sleazy cowards. Yes, the size of a journalist’s balls (male or female) depends on the responsibility that they take for any work they do. My name has always been firmly affixed to all my articles, and as a writer I have carried my own cross irrespective of who or what the subject of my epistles were!

What the jaundiced journalists must know is that security personnel will not dare touch a person in their custody unless they are given the opportunity to. Yes, they have satanic methods to provoke one into giving them that chance though, but if you fall into their trap, then don’t complain when you face their acrimonious ways!

Next time, no one should dare the security forces of this country. Wicked as some of them are, there are the gentle ones. Be gentle and you will be treated as such. As for that idiot who was arrested by the National Security for breaching strict instructions, he lied through his teeth since there were no hit marks, bruises, or sores on his body. That is the dishonour that is usually brought to the profession of honour, JOURNALISM!

By Fadi Dabbousi