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Rented Media and Ashawo Platforms

Fri, 4 Jan 2013 Source: Avorkliyah, Selorm Kordzo-Aheto

Dear fellow Ghanaians,

After stuffing his possibly distended tummy with whatever it is the

proceeds of his allegedly one-sided newspaper could afford him, Alhaji

Bature of the Al-Hajj newspaper apparently went hunting and pecking on

his keyboard, the entrails of a vision he had about ex-Prez Kufour

advising Nana Addo to give up on his decision to go to the very Supreme

Court of the land with his accusation of a rigged ballot. The voices in

his head were "well-placed" sources and one of them even had a "deep

throat". So it was all apparently not just a conjecture of his perhaps

deluded party-propagandist mind but rather hard truth that was worth

carrying on all media, including our very own Ghanaweb.

My first paragraph is deliberately verbose with "neutralizers" because,

just like the infamous Alhaji, I am embellishing in my case a half

truth, in his case a null truth, in a way that allows me to say

something without saying anything. Unlike mine which will be confined to

the opinion sections, Alhaji's mealtime musings were carried all over as

news. News that had a lot of NPP fans and toadies wondering if their

very top-crop leaders were having misgivings about Nana going to court.

But some were clued-on and immediately they started throwing some well

deserved and some not so deserved foul language at the Alhaji in their

comments that poured all over like a bad rash on the webpage of the

"news" article.

As if it is not enough journalism in Ghana has been stripped of its

professionalism undergarments with the advent of openly-aligned

newspapers and media houses that see things only in a kaleidoscope of

party colours, we now have the trusted few that are left being reduced

to conduits for this one-sided legion of penmen. Unless you have your

thinking cap on ready to filter whatever it is you are reading, you

could well be reading downright fiction that has been lent the good name

of some esteemed media house and paraded everywhere as news. For in the

case of the Alhaji and the well-placed and deep-throat sources he spoke

to, the spokesperson for ex-Prez Kufour, a real human being, and not a

figment of anyone's imagination, soon followed with a complete denial of

the Alhaji's assertions.

Not long before that, in the foreboding hailstorm of the NPP's refusal

to concede defeat to Prez Mahama citing electoral irregularities, with

palpable tension all over the nation, Myjoyonline.com and other notable

news houses carried an unverified "news" story that had the potential to

exacerbate the already inflamed tensions to a breaking point. It was

about the police invading an office the NPP was supposedly keeping their

computers and Makola calculators used for collating and counting votes.

Of course it didn't take long for the PR of the police to issue a

statement denying the occurrence of the incident.

Here's what, forget the halfwit who concocted the story at home.

Question the professional who knowing very well his medium will

potentially reach thousands or perhaps millions of people, without even

as much as a Class 1 verification, put the story in the public fray

tsakaa like that. The most infuriating part is that there was not even

an apology to readers or anything remotely sounding like a retraction

after the police followed suit with their denial of the incident. Seeing

that they carried the police denial story as well, I suppose in the deep

abyss of their bungling minds, they thought they had met what they

believe is the standard expected of the fourth estate of the realm. More

to the point, I think they don't quite appreciate what the consequences

of their actions are.

I can offer you countless stories that were put up on the web during the

immediate aftermath of the elections. Anyone with half the training

these our so-called journalists have would have thought it was necessary

to be a little more circumspect about what is put out there. I suppose

they will all deny any intention of inciting unrest in the nation but

their carelessness made them tools in the hands of unpatriotic

party-propagandist yobbos who use their platforms like the services of

the queens of the night. "Kofi killed Ama" gets published today and

tomorrow it is rather "Kofi Kissed Ama" that gets published; no one is

at fault for the lie told yesterday and the almighty Ghana Media

Commission rolls over and yawns in its supervision slumber.

As for the openly-aligned papers, the least said the better. Besides the

papers being only good for wrapping fish and kelewele, they all have

vocal editors who are insufferable know-it-alls that have opinions on

everything from Astrology to Zionism. The Wall Street Journal and the

New York Times are said to have party affiliations but not in the

glaring and unethical manner things are being done in Ghana.

This partisanship madness has wreaked serious fractures in our social

setup; it has robbed us of vocal citizenship (as everything is now NDC

and NPP); and now more than ever, it is wielding the dreadful tool that

could inflict even more damage: the media!

.

Selorm Kordzo-Aheto Avorkliyah

Asia Pacific

sanewisenwitty@gmail.com

Columnist: Avorkliyah, Selorm Kordzo-Aheto