“SEEK YE FIRST CAPACITY BUILDING” -GJA Prez Urges Journalists

STORY BY: PIUS K. DOGBEY

The President of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), Dr. Affail Monney, has admonished journalists and media practitioners to yearn for capacity-building, in order to remain competitive and relevant in the nation’s developmental agenda.

He said the GJA maintains that the most critical need of the Ghanaian journalist today, is not earn a very fat salary with all its motivational value: But the priority important to the journalist, is capacity-building: thus urging them to “seek ye first capacity building”.

“The GJA maintains, and it bears repeating here that the most critical need of the Ghanaian journalist today is not a very fat salary with all its motivational value, a swanky car, or a palatial home. What is of critical importance to the journalist is capacity building, so the mantra is – seek ye first capacity building and all other things shall be added unto it”, Dr. Monney argues.

He stressed that, although the famous American publisher and editor, Joseph Pulitzer, was pelted with verbal stones of all shapes and sizes for igniting a huge controversy when he said ‘journalists are educated not born’, at a time when it was common to train journalists on the job, his words still have enormous impact on the development of the 21^st century journalist.

The GJA President also intimated that the growing competition, complexities and challenges in the media underline the need for constant training, which will not only put practitioners on top of issues, but also equip them with a level of scholastic underpinning or intellectual confidence to do their work.

“We know we are not perfect. In many instances, we give our critics free ammunition to attack us for partisanship, blatant disregard for ethical values, deliberate misrepresentation of facts and perpetration of mediocrity. Nothing can justify these professional sins and many more”, Dr. Affail Monney stressed.

However, he was quick to mention that, it is not enough to criticize the offenders without investing in the training of journalists to shape them up for their professional challenges. He has therefore appreciated exceedingly the investment by the Land Administration Project (LAP) to freely train media practitioners in the country.

The GJA President said this when addressing a two-day capacity building workshop organised by LAP for some selected journalists and media personnel from the southern zone of the country, to equip them with the right information and insight on the Project to enable them inform, educate and mobilize the vast majority of the populace and stakeholders along.

The workshop saw the mobilization of journalists from five regions of the country, Western, Central, Greater-Accra, Eastern and Volta, who have been taken through essential topics relating to effectively and efficiently reporting on land resources and land related-issues.

Dr. Affail Monney concluded, saying, specialization in all dimensions of the media work holds the key to operational effectiveness and professional competence.

Thus, he appealed to media partners and owners to follow suit while commending the Land Administration Project for its specialization drive. He said this is one way to scale up the impact of the media and accelerate national development.