Graphic is 70 years : Speaker launches anniversary today

The Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL) is 70 years old this year and the Platinum Jubilee will be launched at a colourful ceremony this morning.

The launch, on the company’s premises at No. 3 Graphic Road in Accra, will be performed by the Speaker of Parliament, Professor Aaron Mike Oquaye, who is an avid reader of the Daily Graphic.

The event will also attract high-profile personalities, including the Minister of Information, Mr Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, other ministers of state, parliamentarians, the Chairman of the National Media Commission, Mr Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafoh; the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Mrs Jean Mensa; the Auditor-General, Mr Daniel Yaw Domelevo, the President of the Greater Accra Regional House of Chiefs, Nii Okwei Kinka Dowuona VI; members of the Diplomatic Corps, captains of industry and players in the private sector, high-level security chiefs, marketing communications practitioners, as well as some former members of staff of the company, including past managing directors and editors.

The journey and national contributions

Seventy years in the life of an institution is no mean an attainment, as it embodies a rich crystalisation of continuity, credibility and tenacity of purpose.

The GCGL has existed not only in name but also made far reaching and significant contributions to the growth and development of the country through the provision of authentic information for decision making and serving as the vehicle and platform for others to build their brands.

The company and its brands, especially the Daily Graphic and The Mirror, have covered some landmark events, such as the struggle for independence, the declaration of independence and events within the First, Second, Third and Fourth republics.

The Daily Graphic also covered the military insurrections of 1966, 1972, 1978, 1979 and 1981 and it continues to play the lead role in pushing the national interest till date.

Platinum jubilee comments

As the group launches its 70th anniversary, some key personalities, including past and present editors, have hailed the media giant for the huge role it has played in the national development efforts of the country since its establishment.

They agreed on the fact that the Daily Graphic, which had been the pacesetter on the media landscape, spearheading development journalism, had provided the platform for the less-privileged in society, given a voice to the voiceless, an outlet for divergent views, education on national issues, as well as space to civil society organisations, members of academia, political parties, among others, to deepen national discourse and the country’s democratic process.

The personalities are the current Managing Director of the GCGL, Mr Ato Afful; a former Editor of the Daily Graphic, Mr Elvis D. Aryeh; the Chairman of the National Media Commission (NMC) and former Editor and Director of Newspapers of the GCGL, Mr Boadu-Ayeboafoh; a former Head of the Corporate Communications Unit of the GCGL, Mr Albert Sam, and the Editor of the Daily Graphic, Mr Kobby Asmah.

They said in separate interviews with the Daily Graphic that the significant role the company had played in maintaining the credibility of the Daily Graphic and other newspapers within the GCGL stable had provided excellent news coverage and articles that had shaped public discourse in a positive way.

They also expressed the view that in spite of the resounding success of the group, it was incumbent on the company and its newspapers to position themselves well, considering the pluralistic and competitive media environment, to continue to stay on top and drive the development process of the country.

The GCGL was established by the British merchant, Cecil King Jnr, on October 2, 1950. Throughout its existence, the company has established subsidiaries, such as the Graphic Packaging, among others, offering employment to hundreds of Ghanaians and influencing society through its publications.

Currently, the company has six newspapers — the Daily Graphic, The Mirror, the Graphic Sports, the Graphic Business, the Junior Graphic and the Graphic Showbiz.

The transformation journey

Sharing his thoughts on the GCGL, Mr Aryeh, who was the Editor of the Daily Graphic from 1992 to 2003, said during his time, he always put the welfare of the staff first, since the human capital needed to be taken care of to enable them to deliver, and that was done through interpersonal networking, among other things.

By 1992/3, he recounted, Mr Kofi Badu, an expert in media management, had returned to the group as the managing director, and with good knowledge of the newspaper business, he helped in transforming the company.

“We put our heads together, with him presiding and we examined the profiles of journalists to identify those who needed specialist training with regard to their specific talent areas.

“We also took advantage of the government’s own initiatives to try and resource the state media. That was when we started with our information and communications technology (ICT) and Internet connections and so on. At the same time, we had the plan to build a modern newsroom or a newspaper office,” Mr Aryeh said.

For him, it was a crash programme because while training reporters to improve their knowledge and understanding of the newspaper business, the company was also equipping the offices with modern tools.

He said they realised that if they continued that way, the company would be well positioned to plough back profit on investments to further expand.

A colour printing machine, for instance, was brought in to boost advert sales in the paper, in addition to maintaining the necessary staff levels, he said.

“There were some bold decisions we also took. For instance, there was a board that said that we should close down Graphic Packaging (G-Pak), but as management, we refused to do that because we had then bought machines and had some contracts. Today, G-Pak is doing well,” he said, adding that sometimes board decisions needed to be thought through and analysed before implementation.

Mr Aryeh praised the current Board Chairman of the GCGL, Professor Kwame Karikari, who he said “understands the business very well”, saying such people must be trusted and supported for the betterment of the company.

Professional

He explained that the selection of stories for the paper had to be professionally done, with inputs from other people, including sub-editors, as the “editor alone cannot produce the newspaper because he needs the knowledge and the cooperation of his staff, right from the newsroom cleaner to the deputy editors and everybody”.

“So we were doing things professionally and democratically. First of all, reporters had the free hand in writing their stories, but I must say that not all reporters could identify stories and they needed to be assisted by their superiors, like the News Editor,” he said.

Reference

The Daily Graphic, Mr Aryeh said, had, over the years, been able to establish itself as a reference newspaper, in spite of the competition, and that the standards continued to remain high.

“To a very large extent, the Daly Graphic holds the tradition of putting itself forward as a newspaper of reference. A lot of people read it first, and when visitors come into this country, they read it for fair or balanced news,” he said.

He said the paper had contributed to national discourse and could not be ignored in the scheme of things, especially in references.

“Every day it opens its pages to the public, and I hope that once materials such as stories, articles and letters come from right-thinking people, the paper will continue to be at the centre of democracy in the country,” he said.

He congratulated the GCGL on the occasion of its 70th anniversary, saying that the company had been a pacesetter as far as the media landscape was concerned.

“The group should never throw away experiences and should not descend from the great values it has attained over the years. Staff must resolve to work harder and uplift the image of the company,” Mr Aryeh advised.

Fourth Republic

Mr Boadu-Ayeboafoh, who was the Editor of the Daily Graphic from 2003 to 2007, said the paper had played a key role in the country and cited a former Editor of the Daily Graphic, Ms Elizabeth Ohene, who wrote to condemn the “Let the blood flow’ cry during the revolution era when everybody was virtually afraid to speak, saying that stood the Daily Graphic out for mention.

He posited that the Daily Graphic, the flagship newspaper of the GCGL, had always found avenue for opening up to diversity and that was what would sustain it.

“We need to reflect diversity of opinions. You cannot discount anybody,” he emphasised.

Mr Boadu-Ayeboafoh, the 1995 Ghana Journalist Association (GJA) Journalists of the Year, said being an editor of the Daily Graphic was one of the fascinating periods in his life, especially knowing the kind of influence the paper had.

That, he said, made him more responsible in the sense that “one of the things I realised was that the people of Ghana were very generous in the sense that if you published something that turned out not to be totally true about them, and either you corrected it yourself or when they spoke to you and you effected a correction, they always called to thank you for doing that and I  

consider that as something the Ghanaian media people should take seriously”.

Going forward, he said, wanted the Daily Graphic, which was the reference for newspapers, to, among other things, have balanced content, be fair and objective to compel people to read it.

“My Graphic experience”

Recounting her days at the Daily Graphic in an article titled ‘My Graphic Story’, Ms Elizabeth Ohene said it was a relief to see the GCGL blossoming today, with editors able to do their job under the constitutional protection of the NMC.

“It is interesting to see that the Daily Graphic never lost its business instincts. I was out of the country when it changed the title name to the People’s Daily Graphic. That ideological implant was never going to work,” she said.

She said she went to the Graphic Corporation in September 1967 and left in January 1982.

“I do not remember how many editors the paper had during that period, but it was one of the most unstable and unpredictable jobs in the world,” she added.

The paper, she said, had assumed the status of a gazette, where official information was published, and sometimes even the editorials were known to come from the Ministry of Information.

“But it was an interesting and potent mix; news became synonymous with the word ‘Graphic’, as in ‘it is not a rumour; it is in the Graphic’. It is, of course, the place for obituaries and top-job placements.

“When the economy collapsed from the middle 1970s and newsprint became an essential, hard-to-get commodity, the editorial section had to fight for space with the Advertising Department,” she recalled.

She said in many ways, the idea of the newspaper being expected to be run on sound business grounds and to make money gave the Daily Graphic an advantage over every other newspaper in Ghana.

“It is probably an advantage it has never lost throughout its tumultuous existence. Most other newspapers in the country were established to either pursue an ideological or political mandate.

“But the publishers of the Daily Graphic knew that you must have a good product to be able to sell, and right from the start a lot of attention was paid to the design and look of the newspaper. The red masthead stood out and attracted attention,” she said.

The paper, she said, was fashioned very much on the Daily Mirror and some of the features were imported, like the GARTH cartoon strip, which had survived in the Daily Graphic.

She said the language of the reporting was crisp and to the point and it had interesting and analytical writers.

Engendering enlightenment

For Mr Sam, a one-time News Editor of the Daily Graphic and first Journalist of the Year to be presented with a car, the Daily Graphic’s contribution to national development had been enormous.

He indicated that the publications of the group had engendered enlightenment among the citizenry, and that the Daily Graphic in particular had gone a long way, since 1950, to open up its columns for people to share their opinions.

He said the paper had educated people on their civic responsibilities, health, national and local elections, among others.

“It has won an enviable reputation for itself in terms of being accurate, publishing the truth, being factual. The Daily Graphic is a household name that is recognised throughout the country,” he said.

He said working for the GCGL had been a mixed experience since he was employed on April 1, 1978.

Mr Sam, who was able to combine writing sports with general news stories, said after his employment, he was sent to the then Upper Region, and recounted the difficulties he had to go through in filing his stories to Accra.

“It was very difficult. Electricity from Akosombo had not been extended there and they were using generator. Even filing your stories from that place was quite difficult. You had to sleep at the main post office up to about midnight and then 1 a.m. and beyond before you do that.

“You had to agree with some people to be in the office in Accra to stay around that time to take your stories. It was a nightmarish experience,” he said.

“I remember when I dictated the phrase ‘let off the hook’, it appeared in the paper as ‘left off the hook’ because of the challenge on the phone. I also wrote a story about the ‘Botanga’ Irrigation Project near Tamale and then it appeared in the paper as ‘Bolgatanga’,” he lamented.

Undoubted great contributions

Mr Afful said the Daily Graphic, undoubtedly, had contributed greatly to national discourse, growth and development.

He recalled his schooldays when he and his mates would pick up the sports section of the Daily Graphic and did clippings of them in a scrap book.
“People were envious of your ability to show off something like that. Little did I know that this would be my destiny; that one day I would have the huge privilege and opportunity to come and lead an organisation with such an incredible heritage and industry like this,” he said.

Future

Speaking about the future of the company, Mr Afful said the 70th anniversary milestone was a great feat, saying: “We are all proud to celebrate this achievement.”

However, he said, the seven decades did not represent the arrival at the destination but a solid foundation to continue the growth and expansion of the company.

“The goal is to create a diverse, respected media house that will provide real value for its readers, while striving to become arguably one of the most desired and admired brands on the continent,” he said.

The managing director said the company could not pretend to lose sight of that fact, given that “our ambitions and our antecedents were bold and they still are and we cannot fail”.

“Presently, we have six strong brands, two digital channels, a portfolio of subsidiary businesses and offices with news gathering capabilities across the country.

“We will continue to focus on a single premise as we go into the future, and the commitment is this: we will deliver truth and accuracy every day,” he stated.

That, Mr Afful said, was what the audience continued to count on the company for, adding: “This is what is going to take this brand forward. This is even more critical and imperative in this era of fake news and all of that.”

“People will be fact-checking. The Daily Graphic has a credible brand that enables us to do that, and people say when it is in the Daily Graphic, it is news, factual, accurate. That is measurable and that is what we will continue to work at and deliver,” he stressed.

Decades of acceptance

For his part, Mr Asmah said attaining 70 years as an organisation had not come easy.

“One cannot cross seven decades of a lifetime without carrying a cross worthy of emulation and acceptance by society,” he postulated.

Over the period, he said, the Daily Graphic had continued to remain the conscience of the nation.

He said being the editor of the country’s biggest selling and most influential newspaper was a huge responsibility that required higher standards, principles and integrity to discharge the onerous duty.

As all stakeholders were looking up to newspaper to serve their interests, Mr Asmah said, it required professionalism, firm principles and crafting a delicate balance with good judgement to discharge such a onerous national responsibility.

He further stated that as a gatherer and disseminator of news, the Daily Graphic predated independence, and since then, it had captured, recorded and profiled significant events that had taken place in the country.

He said the Daily Graphic had been a recorder of the country’s events and that because of its truthfulness and accuracy, it had the enviable accolade of its name being synonymous with newspaper in the country.

“‘Once it is in the Daily Graphic, it is considered Gospel’, so the saying goes, and for me, that is true, This is an accolade we will strive to maintain to serve the national interest,” he said.

Going forward, he said, the GCGL, especially its newspapers, would continue to be professional and ethical, balanced and fair.

“As professionals, once we are guided by our ethics, the sky will be the limit. We should always report the truth and be accurate at all times,” he declared.