Tamale, March 18, GNA – Mr Abdul Hayi Moomen, the Public Relations Officer of the University for Development Studies (UDS) has urged journalists in the country to aim at developing their crafts for the good of society and desist from aiming at celebrity status.
He said journalists write diverse news for which their identities should be disguised in order to be able to investigate and unearth critical stories instead of aiming at becoming celebrities saying, “Journalists should not aim becoming celebrity”.
Mr Moomen was addressing the Media and Communication Studies’ students of the Tamale Technical University (TaTU) in Tamale on Friday in a seminar.
The seminar was organised by the Association of Media and Communication Studies (AMECS) of TaTU to sensitize the students on life in the media after school.
Mr Moomeen advised the students to develop themselves qualitatively through rigorous training to stand out in journalism stressing that the definition of who is a journalist must be relooked to weed out charlatans who parade as journalists.
He expressed worry over the continuous establishment of numerous radio and television stations being setup across the country saying such a phenomenon had the likelihood of depriving the media of resources and growth.
Mr Moomen who is also a former broadcaster with the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) said the growing conglomeration culture in the industry, where some companies were establishing media organisations to market subsidiary businesses is disincentive to growth of the media in the country.
He indicated that political parties and churches were all establishing media organisations to propagate their agenda and that it could create negative implication for nation building.
He urged businessmen in the Northern part of the country to develop interest in investing in the media industry to open opportunities for the youth in the area saying, “There are a lot of young talents here who need a push”.
Dr Balica Braimah, Head of Department of the Media and Communication Studies of TaTU said the department had mounted a number of practically oriented media and communication related programmes to train good students for the media industry.
He urged the students to take their studies seriously as there were a series of opportunities available for them after school.
Miss Diana Ngon, Northern Regional Correspondent for CitiTV said women were under-represented in the media and urged the student journalists especially the female ones to develop interest in the profession.
She said although being a female journalists comes with a lot of stress, there were opportunities for them to change the narrative.
GNA