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By Diana Awo DORCOO Teshie – 14 December, 2018. ‘It is as it is,’ my colleague Akosua Agyepong will always intone when some moments of reflection come up. Then we shall burst into laughter or engage in some animated discussion of the real nature of what we are getting ourselves into. ‘It is as it is’, is Akosua Agyepong’s punchline for the Pre-Vas TV news christened NEWS AS IT IS. Training for the news team has been very tough. It is characterised by being called at unscheduled hours for meetings. But, looking back, it is what it is – the COALITION OF THE WILLING –Read More →

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By Vivienne Adjorkor Laryea Accra – 12 December, 2018.   Pre-Vas TV started test transmission on 3 October, 2018. Since then, it has not looked back. The station’s premises at Teshie First Junction have become a buzzing with activity by day and resolving palavers at night. On 4 December, the news team went on the road to hit one more milestone, to populate the website with stories…what you are reading now. ‘So are we going to walk all the way,’ we the three ladies asked our acting head of news. He only kept rapping us along. The December heat was unbearable at about 28 DEGREESRead More →

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  By Isaac Ato MENSAH Accra – 10 December, 2018.   Friday the 7th December was the national Farmers and Fishermen’s Day holiday. I joined a group of children in the afternoon at the Efua Sutherland Children’s Park in Accra. The filth and rubbish right from the gate, opposite the Kempinski Gold Goast City was annoying. I was in two minds about taking pictures, especially of children at play in a park full of rubbish. Yesterday, I formatted my phone and cleared all the pictures. I did not care. Why? Because just like the Independence Square situation, after 30 days I will still go andRead More →

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  By Isaac Ato MENSAH Ashaiman – 7 December, 2018.   Magyk Radio in Ashaiman Lebanon organised a formal inauguration of its broadcast on Saturday. They have been broadcasting solely online for nine months. They have no frequency allocated from the National Communications Authority and are unregulated otherwise. ‘Our next target after we launch the Magyk App is online TV. We’re getting cameras and a big place,’ Alhaji Ibrahim Tahiru, the Chief Executive Officer told writersghana.com. ‘We’re here to impact the community, to create jobs. We want to be the mouthpiece of the community’. ‘Any political motive?’, I asked him. ‘No. We want to sayRead More →

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By Isaac Ato MENSAH Ashaiman – 5 December, 2018.   The Ministry of Health Ghana has just completed a limited yellow fever vaccination campaign. I got my shot in Ashaiman of all places. Hardly do I lose my bearings even in a foreign land. But I got disoriented in Ashaiman even though it was not my first time there. Let us start at the last stop (?lorry station) when you arrive from Accra. The heat was unbearable and everything was in disarray. ‘Low intensity riot’, my mentor will say. I would have failed as an ethnographer; I bought a sachet of “pure” water, stood byRead More →

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By Isaac Ato MENSAH Accra – 3 December, 2018. In the wake of the passing of George Hebert Walker Bush, the news media have been celebrating him by recalling quotations from some of his most famous speeches. ‘Read my lips, no new taxes’, is the famous one. Why? He turned his back on his own words and imposed new and higher taxes. No written speech is complete until it is delivered. Due to this fact, even though many discerning people can tell that politicians, business people and even sometimes young clergy have their speeches written for them, they still give full acknowledgement to those whoRead More →

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By Isaac Ato MENSAH Accra – 28 November, 2018.   His Grace Charles Gabriel Palmer-Buckle last Sunday declared the official celebrations of the 125th anniversary of the Accra Catholic Mission closed. I arrived at 7:55am at the Independence Square, Accra; I had been warned – nay, I knew that if I did not arrive early, I could struggle to find a seat. At the east end the usual rubbish pile was in full view. ‘No need to take pictures; I will always find this rubbish here,’ I always assured myself anytime I passed by with my phone’s batteries running low. On Good Friday, after DagRead More →

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  By Isaac Ato MENSAH Accra – 26 November, 2018. The University of Ghana (UG) main campus at Legon offers many scenic attractions; there are many places that students and former students have still not seen. But since virtually everyone goes through the main gate, the Bush Canteen is unmistakable. It is a stone’s throw right of the main gate, seated southeast of the campus and showing the shameful retrogression in the entire nation’s pursuit of truth and integrity; our compromise with mediocrity; our spineless approach to solving existential problems. ‘You mean students eat there?,’ a friend asked when I showed him the pictures. ‘IRead More →

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  By Isaac Ato MENSAH Accra – 24 November, 2018.   Media owners and managers in Ghana are struggling; and they appear to shout with one voice, ‘Are we in business or we are in voluntary service?’. How can we forget TV Africa? Today, it only produces a voice over blended with library files popularly referred to as post production. Another example, is the EIB Media Network of Dr Kwabena Duffuor, former governor of Bank of Ghana and former finance minister. It should have been easy, for, having established a bank and an insurance company, his media managers could expect a ready-made client base thatRead More →

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By Isaac Ato MENSAH Accra- 21 November, 2018. The University of Ghana (UG) has introduced a four-hour document request service – and it works! But you will spend the whole day there if you want to prove its efficacy. The usual 2 days, 3 days, one week or two weeks waiting period for documents is still there; nothing has changed except the cost per printed copy. Going to the UG registry in pursuit of such documents is an uphill task –both literally and figuratively. If you are not a millennial, I am sure you still have mixed feelings of the walk up and down theRead More →