Kotoko Express Editor slams Ghana Premier League critics

Editor of Kumasi Asante Kotoko official mouthpiece Kotoko Express, Jerome Otchere has angrily lashed out at journalists who make disparaging remarks about the Ghana Premier League calling on them to bring pragmatic measures on board to improve the system.

Jerome, who took to his official facebook page to pour his sentiments after the second week matches of the Ghana Premier League, questioned the sense in running down the league while at the same time running commentary on it.

The roly-poly editor who seldom speaks could not hold himself after seeing dozens of journalists climbing walls and poles to run commentary on the Berekum Chelsae clash with Kotoko, a game which ended goalless.

He questioned the rationale behind branding the league as a bad one while running helter-skelter to run commentary on the ‘bad’ league.

He is of the opinion that such journalist must be barred from running commentary on the league.

He wrote: “The disparaging description of the Ghana Premier League brings nothing good to the table. It only shows how we are awfully failing to see the good efforts clubs are making. Talk is easy if not cheap. Why hurt and put our own in such bad lights? It's time we perhaps dared journalists and media houses who see the competition as a pack of rubbish, as they carelessly call it, to stop covering it! I fail to see the sense in traveling to match venues to cover what you term as rubbish. And some even seek corporate sponsorship to report on rubbish? Elevate the discourse on our league a bit, please.”

He advised that journalists should grow from the age of just branding the league as bad to the age of trying to help the system improve.

“In illuminating our league's bad stuff, we should often turn the light on ourselves? What quality do we bring? What personnel or equipment do we deploy for media coverage? This is no disrespect to anyone but when many of us, for example, do commentaries with just mobile phones with the horrible audio quality, do we compare that to what pertains elsewhere? Lift the discourse on our league. It deserves better,” he added.

Jerome, an astute journalist, believes that no one will come from anywhere to package the league the way Ghanaians want it but the local journalist have a major role to play.