The Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) held its annual award scheme on Saturday.
Portia Gabor of TV3 was adjudged the P.AV. Ansah Journalist of the year 2021.
She was the best health reporter for the TV category for a story titled ‘Wealth for Health’ and also picked up the best news reporter (TV) for her story on ‘A beggar’s Paradise’.
Again, Joy Prime Freelancer, Francisca Enchill picked up the best female Journalist of the year while, Manuel Koranteng who has worked with Multimedia for two years, took the Komla Dumor Most Promising Journalist.
The awards night brought together dignitaries including the Special Media Advisor at the Presidency, Mrs. Florence Oboshie Sai-Coffie, the Deputy Minister of Information, Fatimatu Abubakar, Supreme Court Judge, Justice Yonni Kulendi and U.S. Ambassador to Ghana, H.E. Virginia E. Palmer.
The event was held on the theme: “Walking the Path Towards Ghana’s Economic Recovery: The Role of the Media”.
Modalities for GJA awards reviewed- GJA President
The Ghana Journalist Association has said the structure for the selection of awardees for its annually held awards night has been reviewed following a barrage of concerns from stakeholders.
The Association noted that, since its newly appointed executives took office, they have taken another look at the awards scheme to make it bigger and better in the coming years.
The new President of GJA, Albert Kwabena Dwumfour disclosed this during the awards night held on Saturday, 12th November 2022 at the Kempinski Hotel Gold Coast City in Accra.
Mr. Dwumfour added: “in that regard, a seven-member GJA Media Awards Review Committee chaired by Dr. Sarah Akrofi-Quarcoo, a renowned broadcast journalist and lecturer at the Department of Communication Studies, University of Ghana, was set up to overhaul the awards and its organisation”.
The President indicated that, the committee has, therefore, decided to reduce the number of award categories from 56 to 37 and also conducted a re-designation and re-description of some award categories for better clarity and impact.
“In the past, the event used to be an Awards-Dinner Night, which incorporated dinner in the awards ceremony. But as part of the review, the National Executive decided to prune the dinner from the awards in the interest of time and focus”, he added.
Mr. Dwumfour further said that, the dinner will now be held in December, where the general public can come and celebrate with the awardees.
“We believe the review exercise will help improve the GJA Media Awards but we want to assure all that this is only the beginning and its is work in progress”, he noted.
For U.S. Ambassador to Ghana, H.E. Virginia E. Palmer, it’s high time working journalists started highlighting public policy challenges and encourage thoughtful discussion so that the public an identify and adopt solutions.
