Kumasi, Sept 17, GNA - The Ashanti Regional branch of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), on Thursday expressed worry about the proliferation of pseudo journalists in the Kumasi metropolis who troop to official functions to report on events.
It has, therefore, appealed to organisers of such programmes to scrutinise the background of media personnel to assist in eliminating quack journalists from the system.
Mr Samuel Ennin, the Rgional chairman of the association, expressed the concern at a news conference in Kumasi. It was aimed at finding ways of flushing out quack journalists from the metropolis.
Mr Ennin said most of the so-called reporters associated themselves with newspapers and radio stations and blackmailed organisers of programmes to extort money from them. He said the mushrooming of private media training institutions without the necessary authorisation was partly contributing to the problem.
Mr Ennin said: "Some people spend not less than one month in the classroom and get faint idea of what journalism is about and the next day, they are all over the place parading and masquerading as reporters".
He advised media houses to employ qualified personnel instead of depending on half-baked journalists.
