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Recently, a very popular radio station in Accra interviewed a Portuguese-speaking
social intervention strategist on their morning show. The foreign national is reputed to
be an authority in her field, and has reportedly initiated and implemented some
important poverty reduction programmes in her country. She had been invited by the
Ghanaian government to share her success story and also show us how she did it.
The expert does not speak English. Well, maybe she could not speak English, so she
brought along an interpreter to the studios to translate her thoughts into the English
language for our benefit. The professional interpreter did a great job conveying the
different strands of meanings and lessons from Portuguese to English. The strategist
was comfortable and very much at home with her native Portuguese throughout the
interview. The only English sentence she managed to construct was �Thank You� after
the interview was over. It was a well-coordinated piece of excellent journalistic work.
The week before the expert was hosted on the breakfast show, a popular Ghanaian
personality was the guest of the programme. Unlike the Portuguese visitor who was
allowed to speak in a language she found most comfortable, the respected Ghanaian
national was �forced� to speak the Queen�s English like a British. There were very long
pauses when the answers were not forthcoming, and when the guest managed to
dignify the interview questions with some good answers, they were often too long for
those simple enquiries. Like many of us, the guest would have done a much better job
if he had been allowed to speak a local Ghanaian language.
If the contents of news and other broadcasting material produced in Ghana are meant
for the consumption of Ghanaians in Ghana and around the world, then they should be
communicated in a language familiar to Ghanaians everywhere. And what is that
language, anyway? News these days travel very far through various channels and
media, so it must be conveyed in a language that also travels far and wide for bigger
impact. How far do Twi or Ga go? Hausa may go farther than these two.
Beyond allocating radio and TV channels to �Twi only� or �mostly Twi� stations for
balance, what provisions and allowances can we make for local people who do not
speak English? If the Portuguese had surprisingly opted to speak Twi or another
Ghanaian language on the morning show, most of us would have loved and cherished
the experience. Our DJs and talk show hosts would have rushed to use her voice for a
radio jingle or even for a piece of advertisement. Like ventriloquists, we like to hear
ourselves in another voice to feel good about ourselves. What would have happened if
the Ghanaian guest on the morning show had decided to answer his questions in Twi or
Ga without any prior arrangement with the producers?
The other day, a listener called into a radio talk show programme to contribute to a
panel discussion on living standards in Ghana. Before he would make his submission,
however, he apologised to the host for introducing something undesirable and
inappropriate into the discussion. With some humility, he expressed disappointment
and also slighted himself for not meeting the �high standards� the station had
established. Well, the inappropriate thing he was introducing was Twi, a local Ghanaian
language. The host granted him permission before he could express his thoughts in his
mother tongue in his own country. He thanked him profusely for the favour.
Thanks to Tarzan and other trailblazers (and of course to the constitution that set it all
up), we have a very open media climate which is anchored on various freedoms and
evidenced by several hundreds of radio and television stations. In the midst of wide
choices, Ghanaians have the freedom to flip our remote controls at random, for current
news and information. You are sure you would find your favourite radio or TV station
playing a good song or showing your best TV commercial. Nothing should limit
anybody�s desire to express himself through any medium; certainly not language.
When His Excellency President John Dramani Mahama wrote to Tarzan in the Daily
Graphic of 19th November, 2014, to celebrate Radio Eye, he asked whether Dr. Wereko-
Brobby envisaged the pluralistic media climate we have today when he blazed the trail
on 19th November, 1996 with the test transmission of Radio Eye from his Ridge
residence. Well, it�s been a while since Radio Eye was closed down and its equipment
confiscated, but in its place has grown our unfettered freedoms�amplified through
hundreds of radio and TV outlets. Now, that is pluralism.
The President (a very good writer and a professional communicator) has asked a very
instructive question about the state of our media today, and whether there are other
things missing in the wide range of freedoms we are all enjoying. Well, we have a lot to
thank God for, and a lot more to cry about. When journalism experts met last week to
celebrate a National Broadcasting Day, they discussed practices such as radio
presenters mixing news presentation with advertisements. Professor Audrey Gadzepko
of the School of Communication Studies was emphatic �It is never done: You are either
presenting news or you are doing commercials. It is wrong.�
Is it also wrong for a regular news and information consumer to disrupt the
�broadcasting protocols� of an �English only� radio station and ask to express his
thoughts in a local Ghanaian language? Can we be so English that our own families
would have to beg to speak to us in a language naturally intelligible to all of us? The
Portuguese, we know, are not the best speakers of the English language. When they
attempt to speak English, they do not pretend to be English-speaking Portuguese; they
are Portuguese trying to speak English�as Portuguese. If we can allow Portuguese on
our �English only� radios, then Opanyin Kofi wants to say a few words�in Twi, though.
Kwesi Tawiah-Benjamin
[email protected]