Famous moves from ‘behind the scenes’
Popular television producer, Famous Kwesi Atitsogbe, was among some 19 journalists who were honoured last Saturday, August 26, at the 21st edition of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) awards held in Accra.
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Famous who went home with the Best Journalist for Arts, Entertainment and Domestic Tourism for his story, Mole: Ghana's Wildlife for Tourism, also scooped the Small and Medium Scale Enterprise (SME) category for a story entitled, Juice from the baobab.
The media and communications practitioner with over 14 years of experience in Journalism, Public Relations, Advertising, television and radio productions, told the Graphic Showbiz in an interview that having produced shows that have won several awards in the past, he realised he has done himself a disservice, since the people at the frontline often took the credit for what he and others did behind the scenes.
“I, therefore, decided to move from my comfort zone and challenge myself in the area of feature documentaries since I am a professionally trained journalist”, Famous said.
He, however, expressed worry that content producers are paid, discriminated against and more often have no form of recognition in the industry.
According to him, producers have a depth of knowledge since they research well on issues to enable show hosts give a good account of themselves as the faces of programmes, yet, “our remunerations are often little”, he said.
Salary disparities, he indicated was an issue, as show hosts are paid far higher than producers, a situation, he said had seen the former denigrating the office of producers.
“Sometimes, novice is brought to present shows and producers are tasked to groom them to meet the market demands, but as soon as they start making inroads, they begin to lord it over people and want to be worshipped.
“Such incidents are rampant in our industry, and media employers and content owners ought to ensure there is fairness across board”, he said.
Famous who was also recently awarded a Chevening Scholarship by the UK government, to pursue a one-year Masters’ Degree in International Public Relations and Global Communications Management at Cardiff University, Wales, is hoping to play more lead roles in front of the camera.
“I have realised there are numerous stories out there to be told that many journalists are not interested in, and these are areas I would want to focus on”, he hinted.
An old student of Accra Academy, Famous started his career as a research assistant on a social/current affairs programme Talk Ghana, which aired on TV3 and OBE TV in UK in 2002.
In 2003, he joined TV Africa on internship as a production assistant where he produced the Media Today with Dr Niyi Alabi of blessed memory, Oman Yi Mu Nsem with Adakabre Frimpong Manso and Matters Arising.
He later moved to Metro TV in 2005 and worked as Producer/Director of arguably the biggest morning and evening current affairs programme on TV, Good Morning Ghana and Good Evening Ghana, hosted by Randy Abbey and Paul Adom Otchere respectively.
He also had stints with Viasat 1 and the Multimedia Group where he worked as producer and reporter.
Famous holds Diplomas in Journalism and PR from the Institute of Commercial Management (ICM, UK), a Bachelor’s Degree in Communications from the African University College of Communications (AUCC), as well as professional certificates from the Ghana Institute of Journalism and NAFTI and the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA).