GJA launches Media Awards Competition

By William Yaw Owusu

Saturday April 17, 2010
The 15th Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) Media Awards competition to hounour practitioners who distinguished themselves in the practice of journalism in 2009 was launched in Accra on Thursday.

This time around, nine new awards have been instituted and old awards modified to make it more competitive while the awards committee will receive entries in all categories with the exception of the Journalist of the Year which will be decided by the public including media professionals.

Launching it, Ransford Tetteh, President of the GJA and Editor of Daily Graphic said the tradition had been to announce the competition via a news release. “However due to some changes that have been made to the competition, we thought it prudent, to for the first time ever, to launch it with a press briefing. We believe that it will enable us to clarify things.”

He said “the competition has not only been growing in size and stature. We are convinced that it has been helping to motivate journalists in Ghana and indeed the Ghanaian media to aspire to high standards and professionalism.”

Mr. Tetteh mentioned the nine new awards as best reports on Small and Micro Scale Enterprises, Anti-corruption, Best Cartoonist, Democracy and Peace-building, Hygiene and Sanitation, Education, HIV/AIDS, Crime and Court reporting as well as Development Journalism to further the Millennium Development Goals.

He said “all the new awards except that of democracy and peace-building will go to an individual contestant. The democracy and peace-building award will go to a media house, either print or electronic identified to be a promoter of democracy and peace based on nominations received and entries submitted.”

“Again, the award for Best programme in local languages, namely: Akan, Dagbani, Ewe, Ga, Hausa and Nzema, will now be contested for by both radio and television and not by radio alone.”

Mr. Tetteh called for public participation and support of the awards saying “the public we believe deserve to participate in a way because they are those that the media serve.”

He said in line with encouraging public participation, the GJA will soon engage the public in a ‘Predict-and-Win’ competition for some of the selected categories.

Bright Blewu, GJA General Secretary said the awards ceremony is getting bigger and more interesting - “we are determined to lead the effort towards the promotion of high journalistic standards in the country.”

Also see : www.dailyguideghana.com