2010 GJA Awards launched, April 1, 2011, Spread


THE 2010 Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) Awards were launched in Accra yesterday, with the introduction of six new award categories to honour individual and institutional media excellence in the country.

The new awards, which are in the categories of Science, Oil and Gas, Anti-Narcotics, Social Security, Agriculture and Water, bring to 50 the number of awards up for grabs.

This year’s awards, which are the 16th since their inception and scheduled for August this year, will receive entries from April to May 9, 2011 and cover works published and broadcast from January 1 to December 31, 2010.

The awards to be contested for are Radio, Television and Print News Reporting, Features, Investigative Reporting, Photo-journalism, Sports, Arts/Entertainment and Domestic Tourism, the Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu Award for Business/Finance and Economic Reporting, Environment, Health, and Parliamentary Reporting.

Others are Anti-Corruption, HIV/AIDS, Political Reporting, Disability, Telecommunications, ICT (Online Journalism) and the Columnist, Crime and Court Reporting and Small and Micro Enterprises (SMEs).

The rest are Democracy and Peace-building, Best Lay-out and Designed Newspaper, Best Rural Radio Station, Human Rights (with a focus on child rights) and the Best Radio/Television Programme for the six main local languages in the country.

Launching the awards, the GJA President, Mr Ransford Tetteh, said they ”should be seen as part of the overall effort by the association at promoting high journalistic standards and as a barometer for measuring, periodically, the performance of the Ghanaian media”.

According to him, the GJA, as an umbrella body, harnessed goodwill and support towards media development from its partners and friends and explained that all proponents and stakeholders in a qualitative media had a legitimate right to contribute to raising journalistic standards by contributing to the awards.

“Indeed, every Ghanaian and all business concerns must be supportive of promoting media excellence because a free society engenders development and economic growth,” he said, adding that the GJA had noted with appreciation the growing interest and support for its awards by corporate Ghana and individuals.

Mr Tetteh said it was the belief of the GJA that the expansion of the awards and focus on specific areas would help encourage specialisation and get the media not to disregard the importance of politics but tone down on it and consider ways of raising the quality of political coverage and discourse, as well as encourage them to engage in development journalism.

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