Comic & Exaggerations in News Reading, a New Trend of Unprofessionalism in Ghana 


A new style of news presentation being carved currently by some Radio Stations to attract the attention of listeners by using jokes, proverbs and unnecessary dilating of news items, is unprofessional in journalistic practice but seems to be taking over in the country.

This style of news reading is gaining roots at some media houses, down playing vital issues, causing fear and panic as a result of the exaggerations being peddled. It also distracts attention of listeners whenever unnecessary jargons and words are used to tell a straight-forward story. 

It is very sad to hear how news is packaged with idiomatic expressions and adages making it difficult for one to understand what is really being put across. After all, the media is supposed to inform by creating understanding. We should not forget that news is for public consumption and to that end, people of all walks of life which include the rich and the poor, literates and illiterates, politicians and policy makers and indeed all persons in the society in general. 

The radio for instance, plays an intermediate role between policy-makers and the ordinary citizen and has become an essential tool for policy-makers to address the needs of their people and communicate programs and policies to them while allowing the ordinary citizen to channel their grievances to their respective authorities. But unfortunately today issues of national interest are being broadcast with jokes and unnecessary
sensationalism, when it should have been read with decency and seriousness, to enable listeners to capture the significance of the news item to help them make informed decisions and act accordingly.

The urgency of an issue and the need to put in pragmatic measures to salvage the situation or improve upon it is today totally lost because of this trend. The so-called news readers are even motivated by serial callers who blindly congratulate them on air and encourage them to keep it up with their comedy in news reading. 

It looks like current media freedom has paved the way for anyone at all to own a media house and some of these media house owners prefer to employ quack journalists who are not knowledgeable the about journalism and therefore lack the ethics of the profession. These quack journalists have not only undermined the dignity of the journalism profession but they have also caused emotional trauma to some victims of rape, marital assault and other related social disorders to mention but a few, by joking with such stories in their presentations .

This behavior has propelled many victims of these assaults not to report their ordeals publicly for fear of being ridiculed. This trend is actually making it difficult to fight crime in society. 

Although there are people who impersonate and claim to be lawyers, medical doctors, pharmacists and the like, impersonation within the journalism profession in particular has gone out of hands and this is because of the many mushroom journalism schools which have and continue to spring up. 

It is time for the overseers’ media practitioners like the NMC, GJA and the Communications Ministry to put in place guidelines specifying who qualifies to practice as a Journalist. If this is not done, the newly emerged self-styled comedians who have suddenly turned into news anchors and calling themselves Journalists will continue to poison the society with misinformation. 

The situation should be arrested now, as it is getting out of control. For it is said that, "a stitch in time, saves nine".




By:  Richard Tawiah, a Journalist