Nkonkonsa Celebrity Gossip From Africa
In light of the growing celebrity status of journalists in the field, astute Ghanaian journalist and media personality, Bernard Avle has urged fellow journalists to maintain their integrity.
Speaking on his morning show; Citi Breakfast Show on Thursday, April 11, 2024, Avle discussed how the journalism industry is evolving and voiced worries about the preference for social media numbers and celebrity over journalistic values.
He talked about how Ghanaian television has changed throughout the years, focusing especially on the late 1990s.
“Those days, those our actors were good, these days things have changed even the journalists have changed, we’ve become celebrities,“ Avle remarked during the show. “Things are not the same anymore. Those days, those who were in the journalism profession, they were professionals, they were even working at other places and they were doing part-time. Of course, you can’t do part-time anymore, and media people were role models. We need purity; we need to accept that things have changed.
We need to have some puritans in the media, people who will have to stick to what they have to do and do it “.
Avle stressed how crucial it is to uphold journalistic integrity in the face of social media metrics and the allure of celebrity.
“A young journalist now, the thing they are now being told about what the profession needs, influencers, and all those things. Do your story, be accurate, and be fair, you can have 20, 000 followers on Facebook but that is not the work, your real work is to make sure when you do the story, you should make sure it is well written, your grammar is correct, you attribute it rightly. These are the basics but people are missing it
Some guy came to me that he wants to come and work here, he has so many people following him, his grammar is even wrong and people are following him all over and he wants to be a media guy, how can you be a media guy when you can’t write English or whatever language you want to use to do the media “
The seasoned journalist expressed his worries about the loss of critical thinking and in-depth reporting, blaming it on the popularity of brief, skimmed information.
“We can’t even read thorough stories because most stories are like four paragraphs and they’re moving to the next, it is even changing the way we think because people are not able to think deeply. You can’t sit quietly and meditate for two hours because everything is quick, we creating a generation of people who are dumb we need to go back to some fundamentals” he stated.
Avle emphasized the importance of journalism and exhorted other journalists to stay rooted in their field and shun the perks of celebrity.
“The basis of journalism is verification of information to put out because now I am using this to advise myself as well because it’s changing, followership, stardom when people see you they want autographs and you think you are a big guy, you are not any big guy , you are a simple journalist, never forget who you are. Don’t let people define you because of your big car” he added.
NKONKONSA.com
