GPU Awards Night, GPU Gala Dinner and other events, now generally accepted as useless, occupy important dates on the Calendar of events of the Gambia’s apex press body.
Not only that the GPU had failed in improving the quality of journalism in this country not even few notches up in the past 15 or so years ago but this union is now turning itself into a joke.
Laughing stock was made of it recently when respected Essau Williams of the BBC suggested to it to cease encouraging mediocrity and support excellence.
Though some have taken offense of the suggestion by Mr. William that the awards night did not worth the time, energy and resources spent on it, he was right to bemoan the dearth of creativity, industrial-scale grammatical dismemberment and strategic thinking in many of the entries that reached the panel of judges.
Despite enjoying decent donor support for many years now, the GPU could not still quench the thirst and hunger of editors for good reporters.
The union’s never-ending workshops for favored media practitioners and outlets have so far failed to bring any quality enhancement to the country’s journalism.
MAJAC continues to churn out hundreds of products but a majority of them is still to impress in the newsrooms and behind the microphones.
They emerge from the GPU journalism training centre dumber than before taking instructions.
Media houses continue to put up advertisements for journalism jobs but they end up managing with the ones they trained themselves.
What an embarrassment!
The GPU has also regressed to a union of job spinning for those who have virtually nothing to do with journalism.
You see, the founders of the GPU did not create this union to be a playground for every Degen, Mademba and Masamba!
GPU is founded on strong pillars of media freedom and development.
Why shouldn’t the GPU be utterly embarrassed of itself for not succeeding in helping media houses fill their newsrooms with competent reporters and editors despite the apparent goodwill in the donor community?
For fear of digressing, we will pause here to ask whether it’s not better for the GPU to honour our fallen heroes such as Deyda Hydara by designating 16 December each year as Deyda Hydara Day.
Activities such as march pass, lectures, symposium, rendition of his works and associated events could be organized to commemorate this watershed moment in Gambia’s media history.
It’s better than squandering the union’s resources on this Awards Yu Nyaka Horom Bey Buga Dey!
