There was one feature of Ghanaian media that I found to be very interesting. At many events – upon attendance – journalists are given a very generous travel allowance. An envelope with money in it is handed over to help cover expenses. Occasionally, the amount justly covers the cost of a cab but it doesn’t always add up. The events where I saw this taking place were the ones where a large media contingent turned up, usually following a formal invitation. The amounts are typically between twenty and thirty cedis, but the highest I have heard of is fifty cedis. A typical cab ride in Accra costs between five and ten cedis, but almost never more than this.
Journalists in Accra aren’t paid a lot and so these payments no doubt supplement their income. But it is difficult to say whether they impact heavily on what is being reported. Everyone I’ve asked about it says the same thing: the practice is common across the industry. It fits in somewhere between bribery and matter of course. My guess is that if a particular company or organisation failed to provide the allowance, they might not get the same sized media contingent in the future. Similarly, a reputation for providing a more generous amount might draw a larger contingent in the future.
Newspapers in Ghana, to their credit, actually give a lot of space to political news. Politics is a popular topic in Ghana – an African nation regularly hailed as an example of a working democracy – and the media, on the whole, reflects this. A large setback is that two of the biggest dailies are state-owned and so not known to criticize the government, and sometimes blatantly promote it. But private newspapers, of which there are many, are free to do so.
Furthermore, when I pick up a Ghanaian paper, I am surprised by how few stories of scandal and gossip there are, compared to what is common elsewhere in the world. This is impressive but countering this are the system’s many other limitations.
For starters, the reach of print around Ghana is severely limited. GDP per capita across the country is around $1500 or close to 6 cedis a day. A newspaper typically costs 1 cedi. The main audience for newspapers then is the white-collar working class, who are increasing in number in Ghana, but are concentrated in the country’s main cities. For the bulk of Ghanaians, newspapers are simply not a viable purchase. When you are struggling to afford life’s basic necessities, such as food, water and school fees, a healthy intake of news is not very high on your list of priorities. And in turn, quality print journalism suffers from the weak demand.
Compared to the west, there seems to be less of an art to journalism in Ghana. Everything is put together more quickly and on fewer resources. Regularly, stories in papers don’t adhere to journalism fundamentals. Facts will be out of order, with unimportant ones given higher priority over more important ones and obvious questions left unanswered. Leads and quotes are sometimes lengthy and become cumbersome, hampering story flow. And areas like photography, layout and printing quality are nowhere near at the same standard as in the western media. This is attributable to less technology, as well as less expertise. All together, these limitations combine to make reading a newspaper a more cumbersome and laborious task than back home - and this, in addition to limited readership, restricts the print media's effectiveness.
TV and radio are both very popular in Ghana, and while they are primarily a source of entertainment for many Ghanaians, they also act as a main source of news. But like at home, on these mediums, it is rare to find a deeper analysis of current affairs and so they don't fully substitute for print's shortcomings. Something that is also worth it to point out: Newspapers are sold at news stands across all of Ghana's major cities– and it is common to see people standing all around one, examining the day’s news, but not buying it. By doing this, they are circumnavigating the income problem but it hardly solves print's larger problems.
The B&FT has quite a unique place in all of this. The paper promotes itself as being Ghana’s most authoritative business publication and is published on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. At first, I was a little sceptical towards this claim, but after six weeks of seeing the paper in operation, I more than agree.
The paper’s office is in a fairly small building in Osu, a westernised district of Ghana. The main office is up a flight of stairs and it is where all the journalists write the newspaper. The set up is rather basic: in a large room, there is a corral with 5 computers around it and a small printer in the centre. Articles are produced here and printed off to be checked by the editor and his deputy - they work in a couple of small offices off to the side. Once they approve a piece, a big OK is scrawled across the front (sometimes a page number is designated) and the story is passed onto the layout guys. These guys work in a partitioned-off section of the room that is against the wall and beyond this, there are a few offices for the paper’s directors and owners. Downstairs, there is a room devoted to the market section.
I did my internship alongside another intern, a French girl named Marion. We worked at a small desk just near the corral. Around going on assignments with journalists, we read the B&FT newspaper itself a lot. On my first day, I was given a large stack of back issues and told to go through them. For most of the day, I sat there flipping through pages and by the end of it, I had a very good idea of what the paper was about.
My first article published was from my second day of work and dealt with a Shell Road Safety day. It doubled as both my first piece of writing ever published and also my first piece to yield a complaint. When the article appeared in print, the man I interviewed with another journalist for the piece phoned the B&FT, complaining that his title was Managing Director and not the Sales and Marketing Manager, as I had written it. He had given me a business card following the interview, but I was sure that I had copied it correctly. I had looked everything over and over again, simply for the reason that it was my first piece. At first, I couldn’t find the card and it looked like we might have to print a retraction and I was mortified. But Leslie, the other journalist, found his copy. I looked at it and smiled as I saw Sales and Marketing Manager on it, but then Leslie flipped it over, revealing an identical face on the other side but with Managing Director on it. Lesley laughed and once he confirmed that it meant we wouldn't have to print a retraction, I did too.
Something that surprised me at the very beginning of my internship was how few journalists the B&FT employs. In the main room, five guys write on a full-time basis and they create the bulk of the paper’s meaningful content. Wire services, freelancers and the occasional part timer create the rest. The finished product is a 25-35 page publication that is produced to a higher standard than the rest of Ghana’s papers. Reporting is more thorough, the standard of ink, paper and writing is better and the content usually includes some very in-depth business analysis. The paper also happens to be Ghana's most expensive - at 2 cedis a copy.
The best way that I can sum up the B&FT is to say that it is a paper that knows what it wants to be. The mood at the paper is incredibly pro-business. The view towards the government is only kind so long as the paper views the leadership as facilitating business. For my internship, this business focus had both pros and cons. I had some lengthy and truly interesting conversations with co-workers about economics and today, I have a newfound appreciation for the study. And the focus on Ghana's business necessarily meant that the paper regularly spoke about national development, which is an area I find very interesting. But the paper’s focus on one area meant that ideas had to be of a particular kind. It took me a few weeks, but the topics of tourism and life as a foreigner in Ghana became my specialty and most of my published pieces related to them.
When I finished my internship, it was sad to leave, as my time at the B&FT was both one of the most enjoyable times in my life, as well as the one of the most educational. I hope to stay in touch with the staff there and I’ll be sure to continue following Ghana’s economic development. It is a story that will be an example to elsewhere in Africa, and no doubt, these guys will be the ones reporting on it.
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