Media And Broadcasting Awards 2013 Launched

The Institute of Media Practice (IMP) has launched the Media and Broadcasting Awards (MaBA) at a ceremony in Accra.

The ceremony at the Silver Lounge witnessed the president of the Institute, JOT Agyeman, mentioning that the MaBA had been conceived about ten years ago.

He added that the awards would be an annual event that seeks to recognize and honour individual journalists and media organizations for excellence in specific areas of national life, including health, education, sanitation and entertainment.

He further added that the jury for the Media and Broadcasting Awards had been mandated to come up with awardees, who would be proper role models and examples of what true media practice in Ghana is.

�We will guarantee that as we hand over the baton, those who will take our place will see in us a profession worth living and dying for�, he reiterated.

Unlike other Media and Broadcasting awards, the MaBA will establish a Media and Broadcasting Hall of Fame, where exceptional media practitioners with long proven records will be considered for induction into the Hall of Fame. Also, the MaBA will award a Media and Broadcasting Student of the Year as well as the Media Entrepreneur of the Year.

In his address, the president also announced that come March 7, 2014, the jury made up of Kofi Akpabli, author and two-time CNN African Journalist of the Year award winner, Kofi Tsikata, Senior Communication Specialist, World Bank Ghana Office; Akwasi Agyeman, Vice-president of the Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association; Florence Toffa, Country Director, Mobile Web Ghana and Kofi Bucknor, a former Director of Television at the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, who is the jury president, will come up with the names of the nominees for the 16 categories of the awards.

JOT Agyeman expressed optimism that those who will emerge the eventual winners in the various categories will be proof that the future of the media landscape is very bright.

�I am confident that come 7th of March 2014, the names of the great and the good will leave no doubt in our minds that the future of the media landscape is very bright�, hemphasized.

The launch of the MaBA was graced by some media practitioners and some of the jury members. It was supported by the National Media Commission and its Chairman, Ambassador Kabral Blay-Amihere.

The awards event is being organized by the Institute of Media Practice (IMP), a research-based media institute in West Africa that offers internationally recognized research and data for organizations that require data for business. It was this institute that compiled the Ghana Television Report.