When Watchman Sleeps for Massa

The Case journalism embededness with politicians and others.


About 3 am, the man of the house, Massa Oppong, wakes up, looking all funky, and swaggers sleepily to the kitchen to get something to drink. He hears noises outside and calls out for the watchman who was lying on his duty-post bench outside. After yelling out his name several times, the watchman responds in a start, “Massa, Massa!” Then, the man of the house yells back at him, “Owusu, you are sleeping again? What kind of watchman are you?” Owusu responds, “Massa, I dreamt that you’ve made plenty plenty money. Madam make plenty plenty babies. You go build big house.” Was the watchman sleeping or keeping watching? Go figure. Can you be awake, snoring and dreaming at the same time? Not a chance! That will be unnatural. So the watchman was telling a big lie. The dream ‘toli’ was meant for him to get into Massa’s good books. But worse of all, the dream was a ploy to get Massa to ignore the watchman’s unwatchfulness.

The media of mass communication is said to be ‘watchdogs’ of society. A watchdog watches keenly, alertly, ferociously and at all times, and doesn’t allow anything untoward to get close to the precious objects for which it’s ‘hired’ to watch. Journalists have a mandate to watch out for society and protect it from hounds, who with insatiable craving, are always ready to pilfer and plunder. The hounds (Massas) include politicians, businesses, foreigners and ordinary unsuspicious individuals among the citizenry. The role of the journalist is to expose wrong-doing. How do you expose people you are in bed with? When you are ‘paddy’ with someone, you tend to ignore or not see what they do wrong.

In the past week, a politician asserted that he ‘knows’ the media. What is it that people ‘know’? What is the nature of their knowing? It sounds like the kind of ‘knowing’ that is nothing but dirty; like prostitution. It sounds like intimate knowledge that boarders on over-familiarity. Do they ‘know’ journalists because they give them bribes, nicely nicknamed ‘soli’? Do they ‘know’ journalists because they have a corrupting relationship with them?
Once journalists are corrupted, what does this country have left? Nothing! Ghana will be at the mercy of various categories of plunderers. When that knowing occurs, then watchman actually sleeps with Massa – right inside his bed, snoring and drooling. But watchman doesn’t belong in Massa’s bed. No way!

Perception is rife that since the NDC administration came into office, some journalists have conveniently flipped allegiance to the party in power and have begun a sing-song praise-singing relationship with the government of the day. How does the watchdog do a great job at watching if it praises the armed robbers it’s supposed to watch out for? To keep heads up, journalists must stay away from the cushy beds of politicians and all other sorts of plunderers who can privatize our democracy.

There are also accusations that state-owned media leaders are busy bending backwards to please the new Massa. People suspect that NDC folks are doing their thing, and pushing journalists to throw professionalism to the dogs. But a possibility is that some journalists and media leaders might be doing self-censorship, the most insidious form of censorship. Just from ‘knowing’ the NDC from its not too shiny history with freedom, some media people might be posturing as a survival strategy. It’s a simple matter of ‘behave well for big intolerant Massa’ so he will leave you in perfect peace.

Many enduring questions: Do we have NPP journalists and NDC journalists? There is a school of thought that journalists who experienced oppression and repression under the PNDC/NDC eras were too comfortable with the NPP administration. In effect, they become NPP journalists. Is it also true that during the past eight years of the Kufuor administration, NDC journalists who work in the state-owned media went underground to chill and have since January 2009, resurrected from slumber and in full bloom and full flight?

So now that an NDC administration is back in office, do NPP journalists go into hiding, or be transferred into media ‘Siberia’ to wait for the day their party returns to power? While waiting, do they rot as punishment for having been too comfortable with the NPP? Such a situation will imply that there are too many journalistic deaths and resurrections for a small country like ours.

Is it also true that journalists are readily labelled as either NPP or NDC? So journalists are expected to have political colouring and leaning, and be polemic, as if standing at one end of a pole? That makes journalism as polarized as political Ghana? Troubling!

Perception, they say is reality. What is it about the NDC which instils such fear in people? Why is it that since the NDC was declared winner and ruler of Ghana, I keep receiving ‘advice’ from friends and loved ones (and those who probably don’t care a hoot about me) cautioning me to be ‘careful’ about what I write in this column with regard to this government? I’ve heard comments like, “watch your back, oh” – whatever that means. ‘Don’t drive home late, oh. They can hire someone to follow/hurt you.” Fact: I have zero tolerance for fear. Lion’s paw!

There are many strategies repressive and quasi-democratic governments use to stifle the mass media. Arresting opposition politicians is one of them. When journalists hear of the arrest of Dr Bawumia and the confiscation of Nana Akuffo Addo’s vehicle, the message is clear: if the high and mighty can be nabbed, then little inconsequential journalists should be ware because they can be squashed.

The Ministry of Information is archaic and does not belong in this democratic era just to breathe heavily down the thin necks of journalists and media practitioners. It is too much of big Massa. That ministry began as the propaganda machinery of President Nkrumah’s CPP. But subsequent governments, even, those who claim to be super-democratic (Busia, Limann and Kufuor), all held on to this ministry. They use it, abuse it, rape it, and when all is said and done, the government of the day shamelessly wipes off its hands and moves on. President Mills has clearly joined the party.

The just-appointed Minister of Information (Madam Zeta) is the tipping point as far as that ministry goes. Her vetting left a sour taste in many tired old mouths. She must be the very last Minister of Information. President Mills should have the courage to dissolve this ministry as part of his promise to cut down cost. And it should happen before the end of 2009. It is unconscionable for a ruling government to use tax payers’ money to do blatant propaganda work. The Kufuor administration did the same, with the election period being the shameless peak.

The Information Services Department and all other relevant administrative arms should go under the Ministry of Communication. The state-owned media belong under the National Media Commission, a better umbrella which, if strengthened, can support the growth of journalism in Ghana. Fact: If journalism does not thrive, Ghana’s development will continue to be suspended in a development funk – half awake, half asleep – in the cushy filthy arms of strange Massas.

For the next four years, journalists cannot afford to ‘sleep for Massa’. All eyes must be opened.

dorisdartey@yahoo.com; dorisdartey.blogspot.com