Nana Aba Anamoah’s social media thievery, backed by her unfettered arrogance and attempt to defend her ill conduct even when it became obvious that she had been busted have attracted a reaction from her employer, TV3.
Nana Aba Anamoah has reportedly been suspended, she has been taken off her air until further notice and the management of the TV3 cites missing ethics and professionalism as the justification behind the station’s “prompt” action.
Every level-headed person would agree with the station that indeed Nana Aba Anamoah’s social media conduct over the years lack basic “journalism” ethics and professionalism, and her recent was no different. The essential question however is; was the decision to take her off air a proportionate response to her Photoshop scandal which she later apologised for, but failed to acknowledge her deceit and thievery, shrewdly saying, it was an intended prank gone wrong.
At this stage, I wouldn’t shilly-shally about, but would say this woman has guts; you stole and lied, you got caught, and then when you are compelled to apologise, you lie again to ‘muddy the waters’. That comes off as guts interlaced with arrogance, perhaps cooked in failure to recognise the extensive impact of her action on her credibility and that of her employer.
All over the world, respectable and credible journalists who work for respectable media institutions are expected to act within certain confinements, as serious minded individuals and even when on a frolic of their own, they hold certain fundamental ethics—that’s what distinguishes them from the ordinary Joe, especially on social media.
A lot of people follow Nana Aba Anamoah on social media because of her keen affiliation with TV3 and more than necessary, she mentions her Twitter handle when on air to gain more followers, mostly TV 3’s audience. Arguably therefore, she’s the poster girl of TV3 on social media—and as such, her tweets and actions ought to mirror certain ethical standards.
So TV3 management’s consideration of ethics and professionalism in this conversation is properly positioned— a top BBC journalist wouldn’t tweet anyhow and say anything on twitter without considering ethics, and I don’t see why Nana Aba Anamoah should enjoy any immunity from the enforcement of such standards in relation to her assumed status.
Now that I have established that work ethics and professionalism transcend the working space when it comes to journalists, especially, those who somewhat have become poster men and women for their employers, let’s look at whether Nana Aba Anamoah indeed fell short of a required standard—and then proceed to consider the proportionality of the punishment or the station’s reaction.