By: Mabel Adorkor Annang.
The Institute of Financial and Economic journalists (IFEJ) on Friday, August, 27, launched the 7th edition of the IFEJ Flamingo Awards after being on hold last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This year’s awards seek to focus on the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and its related activities on business and economies.
The award ceremony to be held under the theme “Impact of Covid-19 pandemic on business resilience and recovery in the Ghanaian economy” is slated for January 2022.
The overall winner will be given the opportunity to attend a fully sponsored World Bank Spring Meeting in Washington and receive a plaque, citation, and packages from sponsors.
Other categories are:
- Best Finance news story/feature;
- Best Business or Manufacturing story, Best Development feature, best Tourism, Best;
- Business of Heath, best Natural Resources, best ICT, and;
- Best Local Economy feature/ news story.
The president of IFEJ, Rayborn Bulley, in his welcome address stressed that the focus of this year’s award is on the impact of Covid-19 on businesses.
He mentioned that IFEJ will continue to engage in and support capacity building of journalists in various areas. He urged journalists to continue to undertake rigorous cross-checking of facts before publishing their works.
Rev. Dr. Felix Klutse, a member of the jury, bemoaning the lack of analytical stories in today’s reportage, said the IFEJ flamingo awards was instituted to encourage journalists to employ analysis in their reportage.
The level of business and financial journalism has still not been the best. Most business and financial pages are filled with public relations material and promotional events of companies. Very little analytical articles or features on critical issues are dealt with in the media,” he lamented.
He explained that journalists are entitled to submit a maximum of three entries; one per category, stressing that failure to do so could lead to disqualification.
Submitted pieces are expected to be a feature/news story not more than 1,300 words or 20 minutes of airtime deliver on any media platform (print, broadcast, online). Journalists are encouraged to start making entries from August 26 to September 30th, 2021.
Prof. Samuel Ato Duncan, the CEO of COA FS, in a speech read on his behalf as the guest of honour by Dr. Richard Nsia Agyeman, he said business resilience is the ability of organizations to quickly adapt to disruptions while maintaining ongoing business operations and protecting people, assets, and overall brand assets. These disruptions can be internal or external, as well as anticipated or unanticipated.
He added that business resilience offers post disruption strategies to avoid costly downtime and also to maintain business operations in the face of unexpected breaks.
The annual awards event is meant to recognize hard working financial journalists who go the extra mile in promoting financial journalism in the country.
