By Jonathan Thompson
She has graced your TV screens with her confident look, sharpened impeccable English and professional presentation and News reading skills and she still has that fire to flame up your eyeballs and cocked up ears.
We are talking about GTV’s Akushika Acquaye. A TV News Anchor and Presenter par excellence whose passion makes her heart skip in fury when she watches young presenters of today messing up and taking for granted a profession she has nurtured her whole life to master.
Her presentation style never goes off without some skillful and perfectly timed ad-libbing, which she says she quickly conceives in her mind while still on set. She almost always has a spontaneously brief comment to make about every story she reads on the News.
She is a believer in the massive potential of young ambitious media professionals who are hungry for success and unlike what most Ghanaians think of GTV oldies, Auntie Aku, as she is affectionately called, likes to give the young ones a lot of room and chance to prove and develop themselves on air.
She started out as a Continuity Announcer on GBC TV, that is GTV, giving a prelude of up-coming programmes on the screens and then strided on to become a News Reader on TV. Her presentation skills had her cast on the Breakfast Show whiles still reading the News on TV. She would present the Breakfast show in the morning and also head to the Newsroom studio to read the News at 7 in the evening. That is the true definition of hard work, dedication, and consistency. She did it all with happiness and passion.
On the Breakfast Show in the 1990s, she was almost always paired with another great presenter called Earl Ankrah and the two made us all fantasize about them being a couple just by the way they “jelled” together on screen.
Her career on the screens started in the 1980s and she is still serving her time at GTV where she is currently the Head of the News Channel of GTV, GBC News. She is also a Broadcast Trainer, Media Consultant and a mentor to many young broadcasters, especially females.
She looks cool and calm on the outside and very jovial, down to earth and a great listener but she never compromises professionalism for play or jokes. She is committed to excellence, and she would push you to the wall to give off your best.
Lastly, the way she looks on set in terms of dressing is the same off set. Very decent and never exposes her legs. Always in long skirts and decent to a fault. A role model by all standards.
