Top 50 sports journalists contributing to the growth and development of sports in Ghana

Sports journalism is a form of writing that reports on matters pertaining to sporting topics and competitions. It is a popular area of contemporary media that has a long history of delivering results, analysis, and opinion to both broad and specialized audiences.

Sports Journalism is in four (4) forms namely; Broadcast (Radio and TV), Internet, Print and Photojournalism. Broadcast sports journalism focuses on providing real-time reporting and commentary of a sporting event for television and radio broadcasts.

Television has specialized sports networks that report sports events and news. Internet sports journalism deals with blogs, narrative sports features and sports columns.

Sports is a male dominated game and same applies to sports journalism in Ghana. The Sports Journalism industry is well dominated by men with few women. The Ghanaian Journalism Industry is made up of experienced, knowledgeable and competent journalists. The findings presented the research team with the opportunity to identify sports journalists contributing massively to the growth and development of the game. The journalists identified were ranked based on these factors:

A. Content of Sports Program/ Write Up – Analytical Approach to issues aimed at producing quality results. (20%)

B. Ethics and Professionalism – The application of ethics and professionalism in the work of the journalist. (20%)

C. Panel (Radio & TV) / Sources (Print & Online) – For TV and Radio the focus will be on knowledgeable resource persons who draw conclusions without attacking personalities but rather addressing issues. For Print and Online the focal point will be the sources the stories are drawn from. (20%)

D. Engagements with Final Consumers of Content (Viewers, Listeners, Readers) – The concentration will be directed at the engagements between the content providers and the final consumers of that particular content. Engagements in the form of reading messages, accepting calls, responding to comments and other key engagement factors. (20%)

E. Online | Geographical Reach of Content – The focal point of this factor will be directed at the reach (length and breadth the content gets to). (20%)

F. Frequency of Published Content in a Week (Online and Print Only) – Once a week, twice or more than thrice a week.

The ranking was done based on the data collected from our sample size. This ranking is not aimed at undermining the work of any journalist but rather it is to appreciate the work of these journalists. The data about the journalists were gathered from these media platforms (radio, tv, online, print). This particular ranking is for the month of June.

This inaugural research and ranking seek to spotlight the efforts of journalists who go length and breadth to make the beautiful game of sports top notch. This tailored research ranking has no intention to disregard the work and efforts of Sports Journalists who will not be mentioned. Four months (122 days, March to June, 2020) was set aside for monitoring of sports programs/content on media platforms (online & offline) to enable the research team conduct comprehensive and proper findings. This research incorporated interviews from some sports journalists and questionnaire surveys to various individuals.

The research team used both primary and secondary data for this research project. The data was collected using well-structured questionnaires and interviews.

The research team received feedback from the questionnaires without prejudice. The responses from our questionnaires were handled under strict supervision.

This was done to ensure that the data collection was the true representation of the individuals who answered them. Data collection also involved reading articles from online and print media, listening and watching sports related programs on radio and television respectively. The research team took extensive time in re-watching, re-reading and re-listening in order to highlight important details.