By Yaw Ansah, GNA
Accra, Nov. 21, GNA – Mr George Sydney Abugri, the celebrated journalist, Wednesday, enriched the bookshelves of Ghana and beyond with his autobiography, entitled: ‘The Newsmonger’s Apprentice’.
In 125-pages, Mr Abugri takes readers through his adventures and experiences in a simple but interesting manner.
The 19 themes include: ‘Hobnobbing with Uncle Akudugu’; ‘A Dying Mother and her Baby’; ‘Bawku Town: A monster welcomes me to school’; ‘Up close with President Kwame Nkrumah’; ‘the Palaver and the Echo’; ‘the Arrest of Sidiku Diallo’ and ‘Coming to Cardiff University’.
Launching the book, at a brief ceremony, in Accra, the multi-award winning journalist urged the Government to promote the nation’s creative art industry, especially literary arts.
The 1997 Ghana Journalists Association’s Best Journalist, said the lack of support for the Literary Art of the Creative Sector was not motivating for authors, thus impeding the flourishing of that business.
Publishers, he said, had been left to struggle to foot the costs from manuscript production, printing through book launch and promotion to marketing.
As a result, he said, many publishers were only willing to invest in only textbooks, which appeared to have a ready market.
He declared: “Contrast all that with the situation in other African countries: It is left to the conscience of all interested in the subject, to make an honest comparison between the range, quality and consistency of writing and authorship from Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe and other African countries”.
He, therefore, urged the state to consider taking steps to harvest and preserve literary art for posterity through a publishing scheme.
The occasion was used to celebrate the prolific, multi-award winning, newspaper journalist, who was originally trained as a Science and Mathematics Teacher, but migrated to journalism after a decade of teaching.
Mr Roland Affail Monney, the President of the Ghana Journalists Association, who out-doored the book, said Mr Abugri had written more than 1,000 humorous and satirical essays, since 1993, under the “Friday File” and “Letter to Jomo”, which were weekly columns in the Daily Graphic.
He commended his flawless art of writing, saying Mr Abugri had also written many articles and done book reviews for the West Africa Magazine.
He also authored the “Soul Blast”, a collection of poems.
He said in order to encourage journalists to cultivate the habit of writing, the Association had suggested to the various journalism training institutions to establish writing clubs in their schools.
The Association, he stated, would consider extending its annual award scheme to recognise schools that were successfully implementing the recommendation.
He challenged journalists to make it a point to, at least, write a well-researched article once a month to boost their work.
The GJA bough the first copy for GH¢ 2,000 cedis. However, the cover price is GH¢ 20,00.
Mr A.C. Ohene, a Senior Editor with Multimedia, expressed concern about the poor reading habit of the youth and appealed to them to cultivate the habit of reading to broaden their horizons, especially those who aspired to be leaders.
“Reading is compelling and is required in whatever profession we choose,” he stated. “Let us encourage people to read and write. We are doomed if we are an illiterate nation.”
Mr Abugri is the recipient of seven National Awards for excellence in journalism in Ghana.
The awards include the Best Print Feature Award , Best Newspaper Columnist Award, Best Regional Reporter Award, Best Development Journalist Award and the prestigious Journalist of the Year Award.
GNA
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