‘VW Car’ or ‘Busanga Volvo’? What do Journalists need?

For the avoidance of doubt, the proposal or request or soliciting or lobbying or pleading or begging for ‘VW’ cars or any other brand of vehicles purportedly tabled by the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) at the Presidency last Monday as sponsorship package for the Annual GJA Awards and other reasons was NOT the contemplation of the National Executive of the GJA.

Indeed, the National Executive DID NOT discuss this alms-begging venture and other items presented to the President for his benevolent attention when a selected GJA National Executive members and former Journalists of the Year paid a courtesy call on him at the Jubilee House.

On Sunday evening, at 21:14 (GMT), the GJA President posted on the National Executive WhatsApp platform a message informing members about the Jubilee House meeting.

The message did not come with the agenda circulating on some social media platforms.

So, honestly, I (not holding brief for other National Executive members) did not know about the ‘VW car deal’ and the other items on the agenda.

In the scheme of things at the GJA, executive authority, per Article 15 of the GJA Constitution 2004, rests with the National Executive and not any individual(s).

In the light of the foregoing, one would have expected the agenda of such a high profile meeting to be discussed by the national executive in the interest of inclusiveness, team work and collective responsibility.

This had been the norm and even in recent times emergency meetings had been held to deliberate on the Caleb Kudah case, hosting of a Conference of Federation of African Journalists (FAJ) and a pending court case.

As to why the agenda of the presidential meeting was not presented for attention and/or discussion is an abnormality I’m yet to unravel.

Since the meeting at the Jubilee House last Monday, many members of the Association have been asking questions; even regional executives on various executive WhatsApp platforms are asking questions

But those questions have so far been addressed with a ‘culture of silence’.

I don’t have the answers for those asking the questions but I have a few thoughts to share with them:

Personally, I do not support the invitation to the government to honour the Journalist of the Year with a car or house.

That may, subtly or manifestly, undermine the independence of the media, a priceless asset the media must not bargain for even the Titanic!

From 1986 until 1991, the Ministry of Information intermittently organized the GJA Media Awards.

There was a good reason why in 1991, the Ambassador Kabral administration ‘liberated’ the GJA Awards from government ‘colonialism’. After all, the GJA is capable of organizing its own awards!

I guess we should be taking joyous pride in this freedom from ‘media colonialism’ instead of taking a jolly ride (in a VW car) into the kingdom of ‘media neo-colonialism’.

I also guess the current GJA administration should be celebrating the 30th anniversary of that significant initiative by Ambassador Kabral’s administration that claimed independence for the media in Ghana a year before the birth of the 1992 Constitution granted same to the media in such elaborate terms under Chapter 12, instead of dissipating that cherished achievement.

In my humble view, what the media needs from the government now, which the GJA must pursue vigorously, is a free and safe environment for journalists to practice.

We must be interested in the government denouncing attacks against journalists and bringing the perpetrators to book.

As a journalist, given a choice between driving a VW car in a hostile media environment where the car may even be vandalized by uncivilized elements and riding a ‘Busanga Volvo’ in a safe media environment where my bicycle tyre will not be deflated by anyone, I gladly prefer the latter.

Pragmatism, rather than materialism, dictates that the GJA must seek first the safety of journalists and all other things shall be added unto them.

By Edmund Kofi Yeboah

The writer is the current General Secretary of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA).