Call For Alternative Journalists’ Association Needless – MFWA

The call by the Editors’ Forum Ghana for an alternative journalists union is needless, the Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Sulemana Braimah has said.

The status of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) as the umbrella body representing journalists in Ghana appears threatened following demand for a rival body by the Editors’ Forum Tuesday to champion the cause of journalists in the country.

Expressing worry about the plethora of occupational challenges confronting media practitioners in the country, Dr. Doris Yaa Ghartey, the Deputy Chairperson of the Forum and a member of the National Media Commission (NMC) said it is important for a rival union to be created to adequately cater for their peculiar interests.

But speaking Wednesday March 1, 2017, Mr. Braimah said the call by the Forum is needless saying: “I wouldn’t say yes to that.”

For him, if there are concerns about the “capacity of the effectiveness” of the GJA, what will be prudent will be “for all of us to recognize that deficit” and try to strengthen the GJA rather than thinking of creating another one.

“What is the guarantee that whatever is going to be created will be able to serve the purpose for which we think that it is important to create a new Union?” he asked.

He said the challenges facing the GJA is a phenomena facing similar associations across the region. “It is a general phenomenon that unions or journalists association across the region are getting weaker [and that] it is important for us to look at how do we strengthen the existing ones rather than using the weakness as an opportunity or as a platform to demand for the creation of other unions. I think that will be a further attempt to weaken the position of journalists in the country.”