[ 2016-12-12 ]

CNN Ghana report ‘bad piece of journalism’ – MFWA
The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) has
taken a swipe at American news agency Cable News
Network (CNN), describing their misleading reports
in the aftermath of Ghana’s elections as a
“bad piece of journalism”.

The international media organisation reported that
Ghanaians queued to buy food and struggled to
purchase basic services during and after the
polls.

“The national economy will be Akufo-Addo’s
major challenge. Oil reserves were discovered off
the coast of Ghana in 2007, but Ghanaians struggle
to obtain food and day-to-day services. Rolling
blackouts are common and citizens often stand in
long lines to obtain products,” a part of the
article, titled: ‘Ghana election: Incumbent
concedes to Nana Akufo-Addo’ said.

CNN was forced to amend the story after some
Ghanaians launched a #CNNGetItRight campaign on
social media.

Reacting to CNN’s report in an interview with
Accra News on Monday December 12, Sulemana
Braimah, Executive Director of MFWA, said the
latest report by the Atlanta-based organisation
fed into Western stereotypes about Africa,
regarded by many in the developed world as a
single country of great human suffering.

“So, often, they are looking for news that will
be negative – that Africa is full of wars,
violence, and disease. That is what they believe
their audience will love to hear or see,” he
stated.

He noted that CNN and their ilk deliberately fail
to project the positive happenings on the
continent to the outside world, as it will be
“of no news” to their audience, given the
negative stories they have fed them with over the
years.

Mr Braimah urged local media organisations to
expose such negative stories, leading to
corrections or retractions by such foreign news
bodies, as happened with the CNN story.

Source - Classfmonline

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