Following the swearing-in of President John Mahama, one of the major things Ghanaians were eagerly and curiously looking forward to, was his appointments. People were keen to know who were going to be made Ministers, Deputy Ministers, CEOs and the many other key positions.
The lobbying was and remains intense. Speculations heightened and fake announcements were put out from time to time. Social media forecasting and projections got certain names trending. Fake announcements of appointees were put out from time to time. The Presidency had to be issuing disclaimers over such fake announcements of appointees.
Then the appointments started. The acting government spokesperson, Hon. Felix Kwakye Ofosu, started issuing statements announcing persons nominated by the President as sector ministers, regional ministers and other appointments to the office of the President and Vice President.
At the same time, letters of appointment of acting Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and Managing Directors (MDs) of key state institutions, are also being issued by the Executive Secretary to the President, Dr. Callistus Mahama.
But I must say that the media’s (especially online media and newspapers) reporting on the appointments has been quite disappointing. It’s been more of simply putting out the names of people and their respective positions as contained in statements or leaked appointment letters from the Presidency; or just republication of the letters and statements issued by the Presidency. It’s been more of announcement rather than reporting.
If journalism was just about republishing the appointment letters or statements announcing the appointments as put out by the Presidency, then anyone with an active social media account could do journalism.
Just republishing the statements and letters announcing appointments on a news website may be seen to be journalism simply because of the platform (news website instead of social media platform) rather than the content. But journalism is (or should be) largely defined by content rather than just a platform.
Journalists should, therefore, endeavour to do more and better reporting on the appointments going forward.
Journalists need to go beyond just republishing the statements from the Presidency. Journalists must do extra work to tell readers and audience who the appointees are beyond their names: their backgrounds, expertise, previous positions, what they may be known for; previous positions on critical national or sector-specific issues, region of origin, and in fact, all other important background information.
In this era of social media, looking for such extra background information and including them in reporting is what will distinguish a journalistic report on the appointments from a social media post by a party footsoldier.
The author of this piece is Sulemana Braimah. He is the Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA).
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