Twenty Religious Sisters in Ghana who are currently undergoing a training session in Media and Communications have been educated on the fact that sensationalism isn’t a good practice in the Journalism profession.
Mr. Gameli Yao Attipoe, a Journalist and a former Senior Reporter for The Catholic Standard Newspaper, who made this known in Kumasi, Ashanti Region on May 7, 2024, said sensationalism had a lot of falsehoods and this had sometimes made it difficult for headlines to tally with content.
According to him, Journalism is reporting and Mass Communication is sharing information to a larger audience via various media channels namely radio, television, newspapers, and the internet.
He added that news is an information that interests a target group of people and urged the Sisters to ensure that their stories have the five attributes of the human senses: taste, hearing, sight, touch and smell.
Mr. Attipoe emphasised that every good news item must have the five “Ws” and an “H” which are What, When, Where, Who, Why and How.
He cited concrete scenarios on how these basics of news writing could be applied, and news items would be devoid of sensationalism.
He educated the sisters that structurally, news must be written in paragraphs, with salient points captured in the introduction which he termed the “lead”. The LEAD should be connected to the headline in order to achieve comprehension, clarity and count.
He tutored the Sister Communicators on some key determinants of news which they had to consider in their attempt to write good news.
Objectivity, proximity and prominence amongst others, when exercised with conciseness, focus, simplicity, and style and writing mechanisms, news items would be apt, Mr. Attipoe who is also a motivational writer stated.
The training May 6 to May 14, 2024, is being organised by the Conference of Major Superiors of Religious-Ghana (CMSR-GH) in collaboration with Conrad Hilton Foundation and Sisters of Mary Mother of the Church and Global Newswatch Media and Communications, the media partner training the Sister Communicators.
The training has as its objectives, to train 20 sisters in media, communication and networking, create a functioning website and to register a communication network for women religious congregations in Ghana.
By: Srs. Gifty Anastasia Blewu, SMMC, Rebecca Asante, SVI, Sylvie Lum Cho, MSHR, Francisca Yaa Konadu, SIJ, Sheila Adombire, HHCJ.
