I have just listened to a recorded conversation around Satire and Parody which took place this morning on Joy News—where a gentleman called Albert Antwi-Boasiako, said to be Security Expert and Founder of e-Crime Bureau sat in to ‘misinform’ the public.
From what I am told, the Editors of ScrewLife.Com, a trending satire and parody website declined to be on the show for the suspicion which has turned out to be true that the conversation wouldn’t be rich.
We have a lot of experts in Ghana—and therefore, I am not shocked that Albert Antwi-Boasiako’s contributions were far from anything the law says about Satire and Parody.
First of all, Satire and Parody bother on constitutional rights; a person’s or press’ right to free speech—I mean political or social commentary.
“Satire and parody are important forms of political commentary that rely on blurring the line between truth and outrageousness to attack, scorn and ridicule public figures.”
When it comes to just Satire; it “is a genre of literature, and sometimes graphic and performing arts, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, corporations, government or society itself, into improvement.”
Satire can be humorous—but it does not necessary have to be funny to pass as satire.
If a satire or parody offends a public figure, it does not make it a crime—in fact, the quintessential tough ingredient of free speech is the right to be offensive.
However, Albert Antwi-Boasiako on Joy News seemed to have suggested that, the moment a fake news (parody) or satire offends a public figure, then there’s some criminal element in there.
According to the Digital Journalist Legal Guide produced by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press in United States; “Although satire and parody may be offensive and intentionally injurious, these statements contain constitutionally protected ideas and opinions, provided a reasonable reader would not mistake the statements as describing actual facts.
Put another way, subjects of even the most biting satire or criticism cannot successfully sue unless the irreverent comments contain a provably false fact.
Moreover, public officials and figures must prove that the defendant published the statement with actual malice.”
We will all agree that, a REASONABLE READER which is the legal test is not the person who just reads headlines without reading an entire article.
Yet what I got from the Joy News’ discussion is that, Ghana’s Media Commission should regulate satire and parody—which makes me wonder; how?
If anything at all, you can go to the court to test the legality of satire and parody in your own jurisdiction—the Supreme Court of Ghana may brilliantly be able to do so for us.
Else where in the world like UK, USA and others, the legalities are well established—and Ghana wouldn’t be reasonably different from the established precedents.
Also, most of these Satire websites are hosted out of Ghana—I know for a fact that ScrewLife.Com is hosted in the United States, hence subjected to the laws of that particular jurisdiction.
So how is Ghana’s Media Commission going to regulate basically a United States’ website, when it has done nothing unlawful under the laws of USA or even Ghana?
The conversation did not inform the ordinary listener of anything—if anything at all, it carried a lot of misinformation.
The Onion has been threatened with lawsuits from Janet Jackson and several public figures and multimational companies—but the law is clear, none has really succeeded.
So if The Onion decides to write a satire on Ghana since it does a lot of international satire, what would the media commission do? Go and regulate The Onion?
Come on, we need to understand the laws governing a particular subject before jumping onto radio or TV to throw dust.
I agree it can be difficult to differentiate between parody, satire and real news when it comes to online and even the big media houses fall for the prank.
The Daily Currant, another parody website successfully fooled Washington Post into publishing a parody article they created that Sarah Palin was moving to Aljazeera some years back.
Now, why should The Daily Currant, a full parody website be liable for The Washington Post’s ignorance and failure to check sources or read in-between the lines?
The law is clear on Satire and Parody—and this is what it says (put into a guideline by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press);
“Because liability for satire and parody hinges on a reasonable person’s belief about the truthfulness of the commentary, you would be wise to consider various factors that may help ensure that a reasonable person would recognize your material as protected ideas and Use an unorthodox headline to alert readers from the beginning that the story is not straight news and use an irreverent tone throughout the piece;
•Consider your web site’s history, or lack thereof, of publishing satire or parody. If you generally publish only financial reports, for example, you should be more careful than a blogger or other online content provider who regularly publishes stories like those in the Onion;
•Choose carefully the parody’s location on the site, making sure to avoid posting it among several straight news stories;
•Include in the story unbelievable or outrageous items, experts or groups with ridiculous names or silly acronyms and quotes that are incredible, illogical or over-the-top;
•Substitute fictitious names that are close to or suggest real people for the names of actual people;
•Publish the parody soon after the actual incident while it is still in the public’s mind and, if possible, explicitly refer to that event in your commentary on it; and
•Post a disclaimer but keep in mind that it will not necessarily avoid liability, especially if it is written in small print at the end of an otherwise believable story.
If I decided to read The Onion and out of ignorance, I am unable to see that it’s a satire website; and I take for a fact everything I read there—then that’s really my problem, not the problem of The Onion.
It’s really stupid to read just headlines and make your own conclusion—because, from just the below headline from The Onion, you can go about crying.
“133 Dead As Delta Cancels Flight In Midair“: Even after reading the full article, I still couldn’t find any humor, but I got the issue it was addressing and that’s satire.
It’s good that we are having a conversation on new media, the emergence of satire and parody in our space but we should do so properly and not muddy the water with misinformation.
Satire and Parody may be new in Ghana, but it remains one of the greatest journalistic tools—it’s a serious business, not just to create humor.
Think Charlie Hebdo!
The last setback Ghana needs is to become some sort of North Korea—by caging Freedom of Speech, especially of the press.

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