Kwami Ahiabenu,II Knowledge Chief

All over the world, most newsrooms are now making use of new digital technologies in all facets of their work. The degree of application varies across board. However, without technology these days, news production and distribution is nearly impossible. According to Wired, robots will in the future, not only write news but also produce and recommend news pieces directly; responding to preferences of individual users. Currently, Associated Press (AP), using algorithms and natural language generation based technology, is able to produce a limited auto-generated articles and news stories in plain-language narrative from easily interpretable data. AP now produces nearly 4,300 quarterly earnings stories - a 14-fold increase over human generated efforts. The interesting fact about these stories is that you can't tell the difference between robot journalists output and what a human has written, except an explanatory note is added to the story that it was machine generated. AP's huge ...

     CALL FOR APPLICATIONS Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows Program   JOIN THE NED FAMILY    Dedicated to international exchange, the   Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows Program   offers five-month fellowships to leading democracy activists, journalists, and scholars from around the world.  During their time in residence at NED's   International Forum for Democratic Studies , fellows reflect on their experiences and consider lessons learned; conduct independent research and writing; engage with colleagues and counterparts in the United States; and build ties with a global network of democracy advocates.   The program is intended primarily to support practitioners and scholars from developing and aspiring democracies; distinguished scholars from established democracies are also eligible to apply.  Projects may focus on the political, social, economic, legal, and cultural aspects of democratic development and may include a range o...

  Kwami Ahiabenu II  Date:  05-08-2015 Across the globe, owners, managers and editors are kept awake over the uncertain future of their industry.  Some analysts paint a gloomy picture of the newspaper industry, saying it will end up in the grave yard; pushed to an early death by a number of factors which includes access to “free news” online and inherently very reduced hardcopy sales. Newspapers were born in 59 B.C. when Acta Diurna was published in Rome. Since then, there is ample evidence about the significant role they play in our societies generally and as a pillar of democracy in particular. In recent times, there is a major revolution in the media landscape fueled largely by the widespread and ubiquitous availability of new digital technologies. Currently over 50% of the world’s total population are unique mobile phone users sending over 8.7 trillion SMS messages annually with other applications such as WhatsApp, which is very popular in Ghana, record...

• Mr Kwami Ahiabenu (2nd left), a member of the Civil Society Platform on IMF Bailout, addressing journalists at the press conference. Those with him are Mr Joseph Winful (left), Chairman of the Civil Society Platform on IMF Bailout, and Dr Mohammed Amin Adam (right), Executive Director, Africa Centre for Energy Policy. Picture: EDNA ADUSERWAA The Executive Director of the Africa Centre for Energy Policy, Dr Mohammed Amin Adam, who made the call, said the proposed law should spell out the limits of government borrowing and spending as well as the sanctions for going beyond the limits. That, he said, would ensure fiscal discipline in government borrowing and spending, as there would be sanctions for any breach of the provisions in the law. Dr Adam was speaking at a media dialogue organised by the Civil Society (CS) Platform on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout in Accra yesterday. The dialogue was to build a partnership between the media and civil society org...

By Kwami Ahiabenu, II. 28 th July, 2015. News business started in Ghana, then Gold Coast, when The Gold Coast Gazette and Commercial Intelligencer, was born in1822-25 by Sir Charles MacCarthy, governor of the British Gold Coast settlements. Along came broadcasting on 31st July 1935 when Gold Coast Broadcasting System was commissioned. Over time media in Ghana has bloomed with a plethora of news outlets, booming social media and mobile channels providing countless news opportunities to growing audience base.  According to National Communications Authority (NCA) Ghana, as at 2015 there are 58 registered television stations in Ghana, 390 radio stations are registered and a projected 40 newspapers.  The rapid growth and falling costs of new digital technologies and tools has opened the door for new opportunities in news delivery in particular and journalism as a whole. Formerly, internet access was glued to computers but in present times, we are going through a ...