Radio is the biggest communication tool in the world, says Annan Forson
"Radio today has taken a deep dive as far as professionalism is concerned," Forson told Elvis Crystal, host of Asaase 99.5 Accra's Rush Hour Show
The veteran broadcaster Tommy Annan Forson has called on broadcasters to adhere to the tenets of the profession because radio is a powerful tool that can make or break society.
“Radio today has taken a deep dive as far as professionalism is concerned,” Forson told Elvis Crystal, host of Asaase 99.5 Accra’s Rush Hour Show.
“Some mechanisms that should have been in place are still not in place, especially when it comes to local reportage where they create jokes about, even when they are reporting on rape, the way they describe it is a problem.
“In our days we were very strict, we had to script everything before we go on air; these days it’s not like that,” Forson said.
He advised media institutions to employ trained journalists and also invest in capacity building.
“Whatever job you are going to do, you need to be trained,” he said. “Unfortunately, a lot of media institutions do not put emphasis on training because they think it’s a waste of time and money.”
“If the owners of the radio stations are not willing to train you, do it yourself. For them, once you are able to speak English, Twi or Ga they employ you even though you don’t have the ethics. And when measures are not put in place it might even get out of hand,” Forson said.
“Radio is here to stay no matter what. I don’t think radio will ever die,” he added.
World radio day
Many people in history have contributed to perfecting radio waves and frequencies, but it was Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi who proved the feasibility of communication over the radio. He sent and received a telegram over the first radio signal in history from Italy in 1895.
Radio was introduced into the Gold Coast in 1935 when the colonial governor set up a small wired relay station, ZOY, to transmit BBC programmes to some 300 colonial residents and privileged native elites.
The first radio station in Ghana was established in Accra in 1935. But in 1994, when residents in Accra woke up one morning to hear a radio station blaring out copious melodious music, but not from the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, Ghanaians realised that private broadcasting had been actualised.
In 2011, at the 36th session of UNESCO’s General Conference, 13 February was proclaimed as World Radio Day.
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