GBC boils

By William Yaw Owusu

Tuesday March 23, 2010
Ther appears to be no end in sight to an impasse which started at the state-run Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC)on Sunday.

The deadlock led to a delay of the midday news on Ghana Television (GTV) for about 25 minutes on Sunday.

This is because staff of GTV yesterday wore red armbands to protest the proposed integrated newsroom project being pushed by management for the state broadcaster as part of the restructuring.

Strangely, the proposed project is said to have been jointly endorsed by staff of GTV and GBC Radio to bring standardization and professionalism as well as help to redefine news broadcasting in the country.

Daily Guide sources at the state broadcaster said both departments were supposed to meet at the newly refurbished joint newsroom but staff of GTV allegedly snubbed the meeting.

The source said since the beginning of the month, the corporation had been embarking on an experiment whereby four newscasters each had been selected from the two departments to appear on news-on-the-hour.

Apart from this initiative, the source said all staff whose activities involved news processing, production and newscasting had undergone orientation and training and the GTV staff participated actively in it.

The GTV staff on their part insist that they are not against any effort to bring professionalism and dynamism into the activities of the corporation but were rather concerned about the rush in which management was implementing the project.

They insisted that once news production had gone digital the corporation needed well-trained and IT inclined personnel to handle the production of news.

The source said for instance the Q Series software used in the production of news had just been installed in some of the computers and most staff a were yet to learn how it is used adding “if we rush to push such a noble idea and not allow the staff to be properly trained it will backfire.”

Matters came to a head on Sunday in the afternoon when the Deputy Director-General, Anane Sarpong tried to implement the new project by asking Ms Abigail Larbi of GBC Radio to present the GTV news at midday.

According media reports, the decision led to verbal exchanges between Mr. Sarpong and Titi Anepe, the Editor-in-Chief of GTV who had at that moment scheduled Ms. Barbara Gaisie to present the news.

Mr. Sarpong who is also the co-ordinator of the initiative was said to have threatened to sack the Editor-in-Chief if she flouted his orders and had to rely on the assistance of the police to calm tempers down before Ms. Larbi could finally be made to present the midday news.

Also see : www.dailyguideghana.com