Fati Shaibu Ali

….e.tv’s award-winning Senior Business Editor raises concern with news-anchoring in Ghana

Fati displays the GJA award she won in 2011

By James Harry Obeng

In the estimation of some people, especially those who would never afford to miss a single news bulletin on television, e.tv Ghana’s Fati Shaibu Ali may not have become an authority in journalism yet, for her to start prescribing remedies for certain developments that she currently thinks nauseate news-castering in the country.

“After all,” they would murmur, “how many years has she practiced journalism to start telling what is wrong and right? She should p-l-e-a-s-e give us a break and let us be!”

Yes, it is true that Fati has not chalked a century in media practice, and yes, she does not consider herself as the Christina Amanpour on Ghanaian television. But the fact with her now is how she sees things. She believes that every work must be executed in their best possible ways, and not how people deem necessary because of the flexibility they derive from it.

Having sat on television herself as a news-caster, trained and inspired other fellow journalists with her attitude to work and, above all, risen through the newsroom ranks to become an editor, there is a particular sickening “thing” that Fati has observed about television news-anchoring in the country.

This “thing,” she observes, has commonly got to do with the attitude of news-casters in the country, especially the new-comers, who now appear on television to read the news, but end up “swaggering.” Yes, swaggering, but not in the perspective of the Oxford English dictionary!

Rather, when Fati refers to “the swag”, she means a different thing altoghetr. In fact, the Senior Business Editor of e.tv Ghana explained to The Spectator on Wednesday what she means: “We are taking the ‘swag’ too seriously, to the extent that we seem not to attach seriousness to the news we’re reading anymore. We should be careful of the ‘swag’ so as not to continuously shortchange our listening public with our attitude and mistakes.”

She explained further: “In the past, when some of us were growing up, we realized a particular way of news-castering on TV. This was the time when GTV was the only TV station in the country, so they tried to do things with all the strictest professionalism required.

“So you’ll see a news-caster appear on TV, sit straight to the camera and read the news, sometimes without even blinking an eye, giving it all the seriousness needed. Such readers hardly made mistakes with their pronunciations and diction. But then, other TV statitons began to spring up and so, a new form of news-anchoring emerged.

“So now, you’ll see a subtle deviation from the traditional style of GTV, where news-casters can now, for instance, swerve their chairs occasionally and share pep-talks in the course of reading the news, etc. Indeed, some of these changes have brought flexibility and style, which is good anyway! But it also appears to lower the standards because news-casters now take things for granted whilst reading, and as such, they sometimes make unpardonable mistakes in pronunciation and diction which could have been avoided with a little seriousness.

“We then end up short-changing our viewers and listeners who, because of our own-made swag, are unable to even hear what we say most times. With this, we also step on the cultural sensibilities of people and viewers who really get insulted. One such observation I made recently when President Mills passed away, and a news-caster announcing was smiling. You can’t treat such news this way; it’s wrong and we must check it,” Fati explained.

She added that it was important for journalists to begin to act seriously in every area of the profession, so that relevant issues, and not pettiness, would be brought to the fore, in order to advance the development of the country.

The Real Fati Shaibu Ali

With the profound dream to become a journalist, Fati has done everything possible within her power to realize her childhood passion. Today, not only is she held as one of the promising youths in the inky profession, but she has also won a couple of enviable honours and awards.

One such award is the Best in Education Reporting (Electronic) which she picked at the 16th Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) Awards held last year, with a news report she filed on the inherent challenges of the country educational system.

That story, titled “Going to school in rural Ghana,” recounted the challenges pupils and teachers in rural Ghana encountered on a daily basis to acquire and impart knowledge, emphasizing the sharp differences with schooling in the cities.

“I feel some kind of an overwhelming satisfaction when I put out credible information, tell someone’s story or expose an ill in society. I hope to do more stories, write better and do more investigative stuffs,” Fati said, as she shared her feelings about the award.

Touching on how she entered journalism, Fati said she encountered her first baptism of fire somewhere in the Central Region at the age of 16 and still in secondary school, “but I managed to land my first job at a Radio Valco, a campus-based radio station.”

She narrated how at that time, when most of her peers were still undecided about which career paths to pursue, she went for an audition alongside about 500 others, including graduates and under-graduates, and was eventually picked as a radio-presenter cum news-reader.

“When this happened, I knew for sure that the pen and paper was my future. As at that age, I managed to marvel the interview panel with my zeal, and straightaway I was convinced myself that journalism was my thing,” she quipped.

After completing the University Practice Senior Secondary School in Cape Coast two months later, Fati was given a slot to host the ‘Lunch Time Rhythms’ show on the radio station, and soon gained admission to read Journalism and Media Studies at the Institute of Commercial Management (ICM) in the United Kingdom via long distance.

During vacations, Fati would spend time at the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation in Cape Coast, where she subsequently did her national service. She then moved to the Skyy Power FM in Cape Coast as a reporter and news-reader, from where she joined Metro TV in Accra in 2005.

“I think I am who I am today because of the training I received from Mary-Ann Acolatse at Metro TV. Like all other journalists who have passed through her hands, Mary-Ann pushed me really hard that I sometimes wondered the kind of person she was.

“But I am a person who welcomes criticisms, so I took hers in good faith, and today I am also a different person altogether. I really thank her because I owe most of my progress in journalism to her,” she said, adding that at Metro TV, she was assigned to the Castle as the correspondent in 2007 “where I had the opportunity to interview the late president, Prof. JEA Mills.”

Fati indicated that after Metro TV, she needed a bigger platform to explore her talent, so joined e.tv Ghana – where is now the Senior Editor in-charge Business News (e-business journal), having earlier worked as a producer (of ‘News Extra’) and news-anchor, among others.

In the years ahead, Fati hopes to contribute more towards making the e.tv Business Desk the strongest any person could find anywhere, in the sense that “I never stop learning and welcome opportunities to better myself and others, so I want to bring the Business Desk to a point where nothing can compare! The station is only two years and I believe we will soon get there!”

Fati takes cooking and braiding as a past-time, for which she even owns a beauty salon, Fasha’s Palace. She also picks Banku and Okro stew as her favourite dish. But there is also another part of Fati that many have not known, at least until now.

She started off as a movie scriptwriter and actress, but decided to “kill” that part of her because “I come from a strict moral background and as a result, my family do not approve of a trade that will one day require me to kiss or go nude on set. That’s why I quit the movies, even though I acted roles in films like ‘Sisterhood.” Fati wrote the script for such local movies as ‘Brenya,’ ‘Kyeiwa-ba’ and the ‘Last Virgin,’ all produced and directed by the popular filmmaker Socrate Safo.