"You can have information without development…"

“But you can’t have development without information.” Emanuel Mwinila Yuori

A week into our time in Ghana and we’ve already had the opportunity to learn from many communication scholars and media professionals. We’ve talked about the perils and rewards of undercover investigative reporting, discussed the state of Ghanaian women in journalism, and pondered the impact of mobile technology on media in Africa.

Especially intriguing was Emanuel Mwinila Yuori and his plans for a new TV channel. With studios based in the North, the channel will air content made with and for Northern Ghanaians. Their dialects, stories, the local flavors and local needs will, for the first time, pop out of sets across the country.

“Our storytelling traditions survive,” said Mr. Yuori. But survival always needs the help of its good friend, adaptation. “When I was growing up in the north,” Mr. Yuori fondly recalled, “our old auntie would group us around to tell stories.” These days TV sets in open courtyards or crowded living rooms do the gathering.

But so far, the the stories being told have strayed far from the canon of the Northern auntie. Just as each country in Africa is far different from the next, each region in Ghana is its own distinct space. Differences in culture, dialect, economics, living standards, and literacy rates separate rural Northern Ghana from the Accra area (where all TV stations are currently based).

A Northern station will know just what it takes to be a good storytelling auntie there.

As the Ghanaian government prepares to launch a health and economic development program aimed at the North, this new TV channel will be an avenue for disseminating the campaign’s information.

And as Mr. Yuori says, you can’t have development without information.