Graphic holds cocktail to mark anniversaries

The management and staff of the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL) yesterday wrapped up activities marking the anniversaries of some of the newspaper brands of the company with a cocktail.

While the flagship newspaper of the company, the Daily Graphic marked its 68th anniversary, the Graphic Sports, the Graphic Showbiz and Junior Graphic commemorated their 33rd, 20th and 18th years respectively in the media landscape.

The editors of the various newspapers were acknowledged for their hard work over the years and tasked to work harder to keep the status of the GCGL as the media organisation of choice in the country.

Management lauds

A member of the governing board of the GCGL, Ms Ajoa Yeboah-Afari, congratulated the GCGL on how far it had come and urged the management and staff to keep up the momentum.

She recounted a period at a point in her profession as a journalist when she spent 16 years with the company.

The acting Managing Director of the GCGL, Mr Ransford Tetteh, urged employees of the company to aspire for greater laurels to keep the business afloat.

Also urging the staff to team up and commit to hard work was the acting Director of Newspapers, Mrs Mavis Kitcher, who underscored the need for employees of the company to be good ambassadors of the Graphic brand.

“Let us work as a team and continue to put Graphic on the pedestal of greatness in the Ghanaian media,” she said.

Graphic established

The GCGL was established as a private business in the then Gold Coast known as the West African Group Company Limited in 1950 by the Daily Mirror Group in the United Kingdom whose founder was Cecil King Jnr.

The company had its first newspaper, the Daily Graphic, on October 2, 1950 and followed it up in 1953 with the weekly Sunday Mirror (now the Mirror).

When Ghana gained independence from British colonial rule in 1957, the West African Graphic Company also changed its name to Ghana Graphic Company Limited and in 1962 the government of Ghana acquired the company by an Act of Parliament and turned it into a statutory corporation in 1971 by the Graphic Corporation Instrument, 1971, LI 709.

The company, therefore, became known as Graphic Corporation and published two more newspapers – Graphic Sports in 1985 and Graphic Showbiz in 1998.

In 1999, the company assumed its current name when it changed into a limited liability company through the Statutory Corporations (Conversion to Company) Act, 1993, Act 461, which has since helped it to redefine its vision to become a dominant multimedia institution in West Africa.