The leadership of the Private Newspapers and Online Publishers Association of Ghana (PRINPAG) led by President, David Tamakloe, has held an end of year party for it members.
The event, held in Accra brought together gurus and veterans from the inky fraternity especially, the print media. On the night, journalists, both young and old, dined, danced to ease some stress and fraternized as members.
Among the attendees were: Kenteman, Awudu Mahama, George Wilson, Opare Gyan, Obeng Manu, Frank Amponsah, Wilfred Otoo, William Sarpong, Kobby Fiagbe, Michael Petit Mawugbe, Franklin Asare Donkor, Jamila Whab and many others,
In his welcome address, David Tamakloe recognized the contributions of the print media and the media as a whole for playing their watchdog role in Ghana’s democracy under a very challenging environment.
He also acknowledged the difficulties of practitioners to stay in business, hoping that in the coming year the status quo will change for the benefit of members.
He said months after their election, the executives have been meaning to contribute their quota but the journey has been a daunting one indicating there are plans to do more in 2026 with respect to capacity building and so on.
“Today’s meeting or gathering is really to come and eat and meet each other and get ourselves thinking about how we can do this more frequently and how we can sustain ourselves individually, sustain the association and move forward. Our role as media is very difficult in this country.
Unfortunately, it’s only us who think about it. But we can’t stop thinking. We have to continue thinking about it because this is where our survival is.
So, I willI use the opportunity to welcome you once again. As George said, we have discussed a few things about what we should be doing next year. And those include building our capacity and also driving media literacy to get those who read us, understand us more and develop interest in reading our products, which are the newspapers, the online and all that.
We also need to improve on our output. The product we are giving out to the public needs to be better than we have been doing so far. We need to actually be together, think together”.
The President urged members to unite by putting their political affiliations on the side so they can sincerely work hand in hand for the good of the Association.
“I mean, the politics, yes, we all have political interest here and there, but it can’t be bigger than our industrial interest. The engineers do have different political parties, different political alliances. They don’t let it affect their industry. And so we need to be sure that our political interest doesn’t affect our industrial interest. Because unlike the engineers, if we let the political interest dominate our industrial interest, the country will suffer”, he urged.
He called on government and the business community to pay keen attention to the media in supporting practitioners so they can keep playing their role.
Members, who throng the venue commended the effort of leadership of PRINPAG and prayed that in the coming year and beyond, they will work together to better the state of affairs of practitioners.
By Gifty Boateng