I have over the past year noticed a lot more of us – Ghanaians especially – comment on posts and/or share web links often without taking time to read through the post before commenting on it, or checking on the authenticity of the story. An example in point is a report on ETV Ghana’s website, which was copied from The Late O’Clock news, a political satire website which states that “Pope Francis has declared that fornication is no longer a sin”.
I daresay that most of our media houses have become plain LAZY! There’s very little due diligence being conducted on stories they publish. In their ‘publish-something-at-all-cost’ quest, many are spreading falsehood to their gullible readers. Why? Because many Ghanaians will comment or share without a thorough read or an understanding of the context. Most of these media houses sometimes wholesale-copy and serialise people’s social media comments as news without even bothering to double check with the author(s) of the said post. Prof HKP, Franklin Cudjoe, Kwame Gyan, etc. have been victims. The worst culprits are Starr FM, ETV News, RadioXYZ, and the numerous entertainment/general mews websites publishing rubbish in the name of news.
Finally, there are those media houses whose constant ‘DEMOLITION’ of the English language leaves much to be desired. Joy FM and Peace FM Online are the worst culprits when it comes to grammatical mistakes and typos – they can ‘gbaaa’ brutal! What happened to investing in copywriters, editors and proof readers?
This notwithstanding, some media houses need to be commended on their news reporting for consistently exhibiting depth and content. They are: