Professor Amin Alhassan, the Director General of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), is urging a national discussion to resolve the issue of the country's underpaying of journalists.
He claims that by doing this, journalists would be able to serve the nation's democracy with dignity and hold public officials responsible.
He said that because journalists in the nation are underpaid, it is unrealistic to expect them to play a significant role in ensuring that positive change occurs.
"You can't expect journalists who have the ability to speak in public to ensure that our public sphere is effective for critical public discussions over serious policy issues while paying them 500 cedis a month," the author says.
On JoyNews' Newsfile on Saturday, April 22, he stated, "We must have a national conversation to see how the private media, the community media, and the public media are sustainable financially to ensure that their workers are paid properly so that they can have the honor to serve our democracy."
According to Prof. Alhassan, the current weak financial position of Ghana's media makes it easy for journalists to be swayed by politicians.
Prof. Alhassan has bemoaned the traditional media's declining income generation in comparison to the internet or social media.
Although conventional media produce a large portion of the content utilized by internet media, he claims that it does not make as much cash as those other channels.
He pointed out that, despite Ghana's efforts to transition almost every aspect of its economy into a digital one, a sizable portion of the country's population still relies on conventional media, necessitating steps to ensure its financial viability.
His remarks follow a report stating that the Ghanaian media is not commercially sustainable, The State of the Ghanaian Media Report 2023.
The media sector is "too severely afflicted by saturation, the cost of doing business in Ghana, dwindling advertising budgets [including capital fights on social media platforms], the aftereffects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and fast-evolving technological changes to be considered financially healthy," the report claims.
It was mentioned that the local media's financial situation is, at best, uneven.
According to the statement, there are equally urgent barriers to viability, even if there are obvious indications of sound financial potential.
The COVID-19 epidemic, the instability of the local economy, and the rapid rate of technological advancements are all factors that have a negative impact on the financial stability of the media in Ghana.
Like other companies in the nation, media organizations are suffering from increased gasoline, utility, and retooling expenses that are a steady drain on income due to the effects of the foreign exchange rate. The ability of the media to effectively fund and compensate staff to promote professional practice declines as these and other costs rise.
blogpay
Total Comments: 0