Mosquitoey Radio Noises in Presidential Ears

Kwasi Ansu-Kyeremeh

It is easy to compromise radio broadcasting standards as a deputy minister of communication in charge of information or a minister of communication who is chairperson of the NCA. It is not difficult if it is in times when the only privately-owned radio stations favour your political party.

Neither is it difficult to figure out, in circumstances in which your government sees itself as a lifelong one that will never be thrown out of power. We now know that governments felt like that because they thought they could steal elections in lieu of coup d'etats.

We have had compatriots describe radio as agents of cacophony. A rights champion even once suggested that phone-in to radio programmes should be banned.

As a sexagenarian technophobe, it was a herculean task manipulating the Bluetooth function on my mobile cell phone to play back to hear the exact words of the excellency. And so, I grudgingly resorted to sourcing from elsewhere what a president was reported to have said about a linkage between morning radio and laziness. Where else than peacefmonline.com!

'Stop The 'Lazy' Morning Shows On Radio – Prez Mahama,' read the headline. In the last p ara was written: 'the style that is used is very lazy.' Added to the story was the attribution: 'Source: xyz news.' When with the help of a student I eventually unscrambled and retrieved the voice recording with the Bluetooth function of my phone, I also clearly heard His Excellency say: 'Panellists not the most knowledgeable people.'

Like 'Henry' and his many Mercedes Benz buses that plied the Akwapim-Accra route in the mid-1970s, I shall return to these details shortly.

I think it is worth noting, though, that just as the excellency is insulated from the dum because he has sÉ” constantly, he may choose to excuse himself from lazy morning shows by using his ears made up of elements such as government communicators, ISD, BNI and national service people, whichever will serve that purpose.

If a president says radio 'morning shows are lazy' he may want to expatiate for some of us to get the message. A lazy programme is not easy to understand. A programme lazily produced is clear. And a lazy producer or presenter or both is also clear.

A statement that morning show programmes are lazy may quickly invite the question as to how a show which is not all by itself, does not stand on its own but is made by someone else, becomes lazy.

The news story headline stated above implies a show can independently be in a condition of laziness. Vandal Choirmaster Africanus, where are you? We need your help.

Unbelievably, though, the lead of the story was: 'President Mahama has described as lazy, the kind of morning shows that are run on radio platforms in the country.' Even more shockingly, the last sentence of the story quoted what the President said which I heard in voice: 'very lazy style.' So it is no one's business to state lazy morning show, lazy in quotes or not.

The 1992 Constitution gives us a perfect cure for morning show laziness with its provision for the institution, the National Media Commission. The Commission needed to strengthen it and ensure it discharges its mandate effectively by ensuring radio morning show with superb style in production and presentation was a technical unit in charge of frequency administration.

Rather than that mechanism, a NCA was created to be administered by a minister and not the NMC. All the NCA has delighted itself in doing is taking whatever revenue that accrues from the media and communication industry and tell everyone it only issues frequency but cannot be held responsible for content.

Mosquito nets curatively take care of noise making mosquitoes. Alternatively, one may go for 'doom' as the answer.  Doom is a sound that repels mosquitoes. It is sound pass sound. With that, a president can be sure any radio noise that sounds like a mosquito buzz would no longer bother him.

Radio morning show mosquittal buzzing can be stopped with a presidential directive to a minister of communications who will respond with a directive to the NCA to give money to the NMC to stop the noisy buzzing, the product of lazy production of producers and presenters.

Thus, whether morning shows are lazy, poor whatever negativity, blame it on the NCA and give the NMC the needed resources to let it deal effectively with the challenge of need for productive radio morning shows.

We want the best in everything, especially in the quality of morning radio. Some want the better which is less than the best. Either way let the NMC and the radio stations be enabled so that they will have the capacity to give the motherland the morning shows she deserves.