Kwame Boateng should have won Journalist of the Year – Israel Laryea

Broadcast Journalist, Israel Laryea believes colleague journalist Seth Kwame Boateng should have been adjudged Journalist of the year in the recently held Ghana Journalists Association awards.

According to him, even though the eventual winner Bernard Avle deserved the award, considering the year under review, Seth Kwame Boateng should have taken home the prestigious plaque.

“Considering the year under review, it should have been Seth Kwame Boateng, but Bernard Avle deserves it per his track record,” Laryea told Bola Ray on Starr Chat Wednesday adding “ok so for Bernard Avle again [it is] not so much about the year under review, he has a track record and I’m saying he probably should have been recognized some time back.”

“The work that Seth Kwame Boateng did with the mother and baby unit at the Okomfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, he did extensive work, it wasn’t his sole effort, he had a whole team backing him but that was great work considering the year under review.”

When quizzed about the current state of the GJA awards scheme he said, “I thought it was a lot more prestigious in the past. And I’ll still bring it down to the declining standards across board.

“It was a lot more prestigious, because the kind of people who emerged as journalist of the year, were people that you look at them without a doubt, because they had the track record. They’ve done extensive work so that when they are pronounced journalist of the year, there’s usually no question about them.”

Speaking on the performance of the current GJA President Affail Monney, the Multimedia journalist said he hasn’t been impressed

“We used to have some really vibrant GJA president’s back then like Gifty Affenyi-Dadzie, Mr Kabral Blay-Amihere…I’ve had a few disappointments with him. There have been some instances having to do with the work done by Manasseh Azure Awuni and pronouncements that have come up about him. There was also that incident that happened at the 37 military hospital involving one journalist and the pronouncements that came out after that.

“It doesn’t appear as if the leadership is keen in supporting journalists. You probably don’t even have to follow or support the journalists whether they are wrong or right. But the pronouncements…I haven’t written him off entirely, but I’m saying I have had my disappointments.”