Reporter launched with contest at Ghana Bloggers Summit 2021
GhanaWeb rewards Reporter contest with GHC2000
Michael Agyapong, the overall winner of the GhanaWeb Reporter Contest, has applauded the company for initiating such an innovative technology that allows citizens to be able to partake in storytelling.
Speaking to GhanaWeb in an interview after he was adjudged the overall winner of the contest, he described his shock on hearing that he had won the contest.
“I was carried away; I wasn’t expecting this much but I’m happy that at least I made an impact," he said.
Michael’s winning story was about a farming community in the Suhum Municipality called Akitibo, where residents and livestock shared the same source of water.
Through his submission of the story, he tells GhanaWeb that he was eventually contacted by the District Chief Executive of the area, giving him assurances that the situation would be looked at and the necessary remedies made to it.
On his assessments of the GhanaWeb Reporter, Agyapa, as he is affectionately called, called for many more people to take advantage of it while calling for support for such a platform to be sustained.
“I think it’s a wonderful platform to improve journalism not only for the journalists per se but for everyone who wants their voice to be heard. Maybe you’ve seen something you want to report on, there is no need for you to wait for a journalist, you just feed on the GhanaWeb Reporter and then you’ll be heard.
“And so, I think it’s a wonderful platform and we all should support it,” he said.
Earlier, the Editor-In-Chief of AfricaWeb, Ismail Akwei, speaking at the Ghana Bloggers Summit 2021, spoke about the benefits of the GhanaWeb Reporter to citizen journalists and bloggers.
“For the GhanaWeb Reporter, this is open to everybody: either citizen journalist, blogger, or anyone at all. With this, you’re going to have your own page, your own page will have the stories and the audience are definitely different. So, GhanaWeb has its own audience; its own unique audience. GhanaWeb has about 50% of its audience in the diaspora; they are Ghanaians,” he said.
Ismail Akwei further described some of the features of the GhanaWeb Reporter for citizen journalism as against other platforms, adding that the Reporter does not have limitations on how a person shares their content onto it.
“And also, with the features, we’re not saying don’t publish on Facebook or anywhere. You can publish on Facebook, and then you share that Facebook post to your page through the Reporter on the GhanaWeb app.
“I must add that the Reporter has been acknowledged by Google through its Google News Initiative competition; I think it started in 2019, GhanaWeb was one of the first winners with the Reporter, so we won some money to be able to push this agenda and democratize journalism for Ghanaians. That’s how far or how much the GhanaWeb Reporter is appreciated internationally,” he said.
He spoke on the topic of the future of digital publishing and the promotion of citizen journalism.
GhanaWeb sponsored the Ghana Bloggers Summit as part of its commitment to freedom of opinion and citizen journalism.
