Radio is an entirely different game in Ghana in comparison to America. People actually listen! When you look around the streets you see people carrying around little radio devices, antenna and all. People play their radios so loudly you can hear them from half a block away. With so many people listening, there are tons of radio stations to fill the demand. Many of them are formatted in similar ways. At the station I work for the big event is the news.
The news fills the prime listening hours which means it is given three time slots. News plays at 8:00 a.m., 12:00 p.m., and 5:05 p.m. With three news turnaround points in the day reporters have to work quickly. I was caught off guard at the pace in which people worked at. The University of Oregon has made me used to long timelines for story submissions. I don’t think I could’ve understood the pace of news until I had experienced it in a work place for myself. My coworkers had the name of almost every politician in Ghana memorized and were completely in tune with the current stories. I would be left behind struggling to understand the politics behind the latest story.
One aspect of Ghanaian news that struck me was how boxed in the definition of news seemed to be. News was extremely politicized. The news was filled with specifics on politicians, government related issues, changes, political parties and economic problems. This was a big part of the reason I had trouble following along. There were few news stories that made their way outside of the box. The news lacked human interest stories and lighthearted news. The only news I saw in Ghana that seemed to break out of this construct was Anas’ investigative reporting. His stories felt fresh and new and impacted the conversations people had and the type of news that was being broadcasted. Listening to the constant list of political figures and extremely specific government related issues on the news all day made me thankful for the variety I tend to see in American news.
