Mixed notes of Auntie Yaa's trumpet
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The re-branding, by the way, is – to borrow the hackneyed phrase of the Editor – a process. It was achieved gradually over a time. It involved mainly a redesign of the paper and to me has nothing to do with the content which has remained largely unchanged.
Boards are different but if there is one feature of commonality of the Chairmen of the Boards Mr Frazier has served on, it is their propensity to focus the light on achievements so as to maintain the confidence of the shareholders.
The occasion to blow the trumpet is normally at the Annual General Meeting (AGM). But those companies that do not hold the traditional AGM do manage to find forums to blow their trumpets of achievements.
Auntie Yaa performed splendidly until her academic streak led her into an exercise of introspection and the melodious notes of success turned harsh and sour. She bemoaned the dearth of feature articles in leading Ghanaian newspapers on topical issues such as oil and gas. She might have as well added agriculture, education and health - indeed every sector of the economy.
Most of what one reads in the newspapers, apart from news, are opinions and they are easier to write than features. This is a fact which has been well-recognised by even a person such as this scribe who has never had any journalism training.
Feature articles are by nature and style more involved than opinions. Feature articles are of necessity, quite lengthy and require diligent research. They contain the facts that must be analysed and presented in a form that is easily understood by a reading public that is not as literate as university dons.
Features must contain pictorials such as photographs, graphs and tables. They contain information that sometimes has to be authenticated through interviews that might entail telephone calls or travel. Then the writer must proffer an opinion as conclusion. The article on the fruit, Alungutungui, Daily Graphic of February 23, 2013 is every reader’s favourite of a good feature article.
The question one asks is this: Is it possible for a columnist to produce a good feature article every week of the 52 weeks of the year? A trained writer with back-up staff might; a pure hobbyist such as Mr Frazier can’t, except he indulges in plagiarising stuff. Even the newly branded Daily Graphic would not encourage features which is now crammed into the Editorial page with others and limited to only some 900 words. This way, articles intended as features are no more than watered-down Op/Ed (Opposite Editorial page Opinion)
Then there is this vexing matter of how much incentive Daily Graphic is prepared to give columnists. People ask, “Why can’t a columnist earn a living only writing for a paper?”
Auntie Yaa is perfectly right in asking for improvement in the newspaper content but she must recognise that good feature articles involve expertise, time, equipment and frequent interaction with others.
Watching the outdooring occasion on TV and seeing the autographed copy of Graphic auctioned for a whopping GHC14, 000, Mr Frazier was not amused. His piece for the week on flooding titled, “Lord, are we drowning?” happens to be one of the articles that contributed to the mega-haul. He is entitled to make an insinuation. But he won’t!
All said and done, The Graphic Board, Management and Staff deserve this moment of glory and must be congratulated. It is not only the speakers for the occasion that must be hailed. In an organisation, there are always the “backroom boys” who are never in the limelight but whose sweat and brains do contribute to most of the success of a project such as re-branding. To them, Special Ayekoo.
By Joe Fraizer
[email protected]
The writer is author of Blame not the Darkness, a novel on the Millennium Development Goals. He will launch Akora- a novel on land-grabbing in July, 2013.
