PRINPAG
The Private Newspaper Publishers Association of Ghana is pushing for the formulation of a policy that will ensure equitable distribution of state-sponsored adverts among all media organizations irrespective of perceived political inclinations.
The Association says formulation of such a policy has become necessary because adverts constitute a lifeline to the survival of media organizations in the country.
Andrew Edwin Arthur, PRINP president, made the call at a four-day maiden media capacity enhancement workshop in Kumasi orgainsed for some selected journalists.
The workshop, under the theme “Equipping The Media To Play An Effective In Our Nation Building”, was organized by the Ministry of Information with funding from government and other donor partners.
It was aimed at positioning the participants, numbering sixty, to play effective roles in Ghana’s governance system.
After commending government for the initiative for enhancing the capability of Ghanaian journalists, Mr. Arthur said there was also the need to focus on the business aspects of the media.
Lack of adverts
He lamented that most private newspapers had collapsed, with others remaining dormant for many years, all because they do not have adverts.
Their subscriptions, he said, had also been terminated by some ministries, departments and agencies for no just cause.
The PRINPAG president described this situation as very sad and unfortunate, considering the fact that advertisement and subscriptions are key in sustaining circulation of newspapers.
He said another critical issue worth paying attention to is the condition of service and welfare of media practitioners – both present and after retirement.
“It is very pathetic seeing some older colleagues when they go on retirement,” he lamented.
According to the PRINPAG president, some older colleagues have become paupers and a burden to their families and friends, a development which he said is counter-productive to the growth of the media in Ghana and demotivating as far as attracting critical minds into the profession is concerned.
It is against this backdrop that he called on the government, all the national media groupings and associations as well as other stakeholders to consider empowering the working committee to find ways of instituting a pension or retirement scheme for all media practitioners.
Conditions of service
Again, he suggested that the same working committee should be empowered by all stakeholders to look for ways of helping individual media organizations to institute service conditions for their employees, regretting that some media practitioners are not even paid a pesewa at the end of every month.
Mr Arthur did not mince words in reminding the government that the Kumasi workshop and subsequent ones will be an exercise in futility, a waste of time, energy and resources if these critical issues are not addressed.
“If we ignore these problems, we may risk pumping resources into a series of laudable training programmes only for the beneficiaries to become redundant because there will be no media houses to offer them employment, they might have all collapsed,” he said.
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