Gayheart Mensah Runs For GJA President

Gayheart Mensah, a media practitioner with 33 years of experience, has filed his nomination to run for the presidency of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA).

Mr Mensah is battling two others who are also aspiring to the sot.

The National Media Commission (NMC) nominated Mr Mensah to serve on the Board of state broadcaster Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC).

He was an adjunct lecturer in Advance Journalism and Development Journalism at the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ).

Mr Mensah has indicated that his motivation to run for the slot is driven by a “mission to restore the GJA to its rightful place in the development agenda of Ghana”.

In his view, even though the current executives have done their best, there was room for a lot more growth and potential for the GJA in what he calls “the next phase of the association”.

He characterised that next phase as one under the acronym POWER, representing Professionalism, Organisation, Welfare, Empowerment and Respect for the journalism profession.

“We need to move our level of professionalism an octave higher through training and other capacity-building solutions initiated by the GJA in partnership with like-minded institutions; we ought to get better with how we organise and deploy ourselves; we must show more concern for the welfare of members; we should look to empower this association to become the fourth estate of the realm in practical terms, not just perfunctorily, and we must restore respect, credibility and integrity to our profession”, he said, adding that these constitute the “mission to restore GJA to its rightful place”.

Mr Mensah noted that POWER, which he intends to expand on subsequently, will constitute the pillars of his message, as he goes around the country to canvass votes.

He has already been to some nine traditional regional capitals, excluding the Greater Accra Region.

Mr Mensah worked with The Ghanaian Times, Daily Graphic and was the acting editor of The Evening News some 21 years ago.

He was also a presidential, parliamentary and court correspondent at different times and rose to become the Assistant to the Features Editor of the state-owned Daily Graphic.

He was one of the pioneers of the Graphic Showbiz as News Coordinator, a pioneering member of the GTV Breakfast Show in the 90s, which was then the only breakfast show on TV in the country, and also a pioneering member of Joy FM’s flagship programme News File.

 

SOURCE: classfmonline