NO MAGIC IN JOURNALISM

No Magic in Journalism

…Says Ebo Quansah

By Awal Mohammed

The Editor of the Chronicle newspaper, Mr. Ebo Quansah says journalism involves no magic. “Journalism is about asking the right question to provoke the right responses,” he asserted.

As a journalist, he said, one must always ask relevant questions that would bring out the relevant answers and always insist on getting the right responses from questions that the person believed was not properly dealt with.

The journalist is required to reframe the question in such a way that the interviewee would answer without knowing he did, he advised.

He said this at a meeting with students of Ghana Institute of Journalism, doing their internship with his outfit.

Speaking on the relevance of the 5Ws and H, Ebo said that, the concept of news according to  our forefathers was the 5Ws and H. However,   in print journalism at the moment emphasis is placed more on the ‘why ‘and ‘how’ because electronic media, had already dealt with the ‘who’, ‘what’, when, and where. “We do this in order to provide for readers more insight and clarity of events and in the process adding more flesh to stories they might have listened to or watched on TV or radio.

In addition, he used the platform to recount a brief history on how journalism started in Ghana. Mr. Quansah told his audience that two brothers, Edmund and Charles Bannerman, started journalism by indigenous Ghanaians, he asserted.

 He said during the colonial era, the Daily Graphic the current leading newspaper in Ghana was established by the Mirror Group Of Companies of the United Kingdom (UK) in Ghana.

Mr. Quansah told the students that Dr.Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana, established the Accra Evening News as a tool to fight for independence. The paper’s motto was “Self Government Now.”  He also set up the Guinea Press which published the Ghanaian Times and the Spectator.

He said in 1960, the Government of D. Kwame Nkrumah bought the Graphic, which together with the Ghanaian Times, became state-owned newspapers.

 Throwing more light on what feature and news were, Ebo argued that news is current occurrence or something that had happened long ago but has just come to the fore while a feature could be an expansion on the news explaining the various nuances. It could also be an old event recalled and explained in full as has just come to the fore.

The students on their part spoke about their understandings of the issues discussed.

Mr. Derrick Mills asserted that, news item was about timeliness, freshness and proximity whilst feature threw more light on current issues. Miss Belinda Dankwa told the meeting that a feature added more specifics to the issue at stake.

The meeting, which lasted for 20 minutes, according to the students, was informative and educated them on the concept of news and feature.  They thanked Mr. Quansah and left the office.

The participants were, Mohammed Awal, Belinda Dankwa, Derrick Mills, Gifty Darko and Amanda Obeng.