Accra,
Ghana (December 09, 2021) - Scores of bloggers and
citizen journalists at the 2021 Ghana Bloggers Summit in Accra, Ghana, were
introduced to the innovative GhanaWeb Reporter platform built by AfricaWeb to
democratise journalism and support content creators to make a living.
Editor-in-Chief of AfricaWeb, Ismail Akwei,
took the participants through the features and benefits of the GhanaWeb
Reporter in a presentation under the topic: the future of digital publishing
and the promotion of citizen journalism.
GhanaWeb Reporter aims to empower niche
journalists and bloggers to reach a larger audience with their relevant content
and make money through GhanaWeb’s innovative advertising tools, Ismail Akwei
explained at the event held on December 4, 2021.
“We want people to have niche content; we want
to promote journalism especially citizen journalism. With the Reporter, you can
use it from anywhere in Ghana if you can write and you are concerned about the
issues that are happening in your region. You can start by shooting videos,
recording audios, taking photos and then publishing them via the Reporter.
“You don’t need to call anyone at GhanaWeb or
look for somebody who might say ‘can you pay me some money to link you to them
and get your content online.’ After you take the picture of what you’ve seen or
don’t like, you just have to share it through the Reporter. It will appear on
your personal page and then GhanaWeb will also promote that page for you for a
lot of people to see your content,” Ismail Akwei told the bloggers.
He reaffirmed that the platform is accessible
to the general public, bloggers and citizen journalists as well as celebrities
and influencers who can share content onto their dedicated pages by uploading
through the Reporter on the GhanaWeb App. “The content would be screened and
published. It would be displayed on your dedicated page and also displayed on
the Wall section of GhanaWeb,” he said.
Another significant feature of the GhanaWeb
Reporter is the ability to share content and posts directly from social
networking sites to the Reporter. “You may have a YouTube video or Facebook
post that you want to share with your audience on GhanaWeb. All you have to do
is to hit the share button on the post on YouTube or Facebook and then select
the GhanaWeb Reporter. This will share the post onto your personal page after
it is screened,” he added.
Ismail Akwei highlighted how the GhanaWeb
Reporter can help content creators and bloggers with specialised blogs to make
some money instead of spending on owning websites, search engine optimization
and web hosting. “On their specialised blogs, they can generate revenue through
self-service advertisement spaces. Those with high traffic would also make
money from revenue sharing of programmatic advertising sold on their blogs,” he
said.
He concluded that the GhanaWeb Reporter is a
gamechanger in Ghana and Africa that would give millions of audiences direct
access to a wide range of local news produced by citizen journalists and
content creators who would have the ability to track pageviews and earnings
directly from the App. The audience can also engage with content creators by
sending them direct messages and commenting on their content via the same
platform.
“This is the way to bring digital publishing
to the forefront in Ghana to put back the power in the hands of bloggers, in
the hands of citizen journalists, in the hands of individuals who feel they
have a lot of things to say; individuals who feel it’s time to have their
voices heard. With GhanaWeb, you would have about 4 million people following
and consuming your content if your content has a lot of interesting angles and
interesting things out there that you could share with people. This is what the
GhanaWeb Reporter is all about,” he elaborated.
Meanwhile, 10 lucky bloggers who participated
in the GhanaWeb Reporter contest have been selected and offered specialised
blogs to share their niche content and earn some revenue by growing their
blogs.
The ultimate winner of the GhanaWeb Reporter
contest, Michael Agyapong, was presented a cash prize of GHc2,000 cedis at the
2021 Ghana Bloggers Summit for his winning blog post which was about a farming
community in a town in the Eastern Region of Ghana where residents and
livestock share the same source of water. He won the ultimate prize based on
the relevance, quality and impact of the story after it was published.
Specialised blogs would be made available to
bloggers, citizen journalists, celebrities and influencers on request and if
they meet GhanaWeb’s qualification requirements.
GhanaWeb Reporter is a distinctive feature of
the GhanaWeb App which is available for free download from the Google Play
Store and App Store. In 2020, the GhanaWeb Reporter won the GNI Innovation
Challenges award by the Google News Initiative (GNI) as part of Google’s
commitment to helping journalism thrive in the digital age and to see news
innovators step forward with new thinking.
Video
Link: https://youtu.be/qd7zyfjYOJo
About
GhanaWeb Reporter
GhanaWeb
Reporter is Ghana’s first digital platform dedicated to democratising
journalism and supporting content creators to make a living. A distinctive
feature of the GhanaWeb App, the Reporter aims to empower niche journalists and
bloggers to reach a larger audience with their relevant content and make money
through GhanaWeb’s innovative advertising tools.
Launched
in 2020, the Reporter allows direct sharing of articles, videos, audios, photos
and social media posts with captions to automatically created user pages with
customized URLs on GhanaWeb. The content is screened and published on the
dedicated pages and on the Wall section of the most visited website in Ghana.
GhanaWeb
Reporter allows content creators, citizen journalists, celebrities and
influencers to avoid the cost of owning websites, search engine optimization
and web hosting as they are granted access to specialised blogs that will help
them generate revenue through self-service advertisement spaces. Those with
high traffic can make money from revenue sharing of programmatic advertising
sold on their blogs.
GhanaWeb
Reporter is a gamechanger in Ghana and Africa that would give millions of
audiences direct access to a wide range of local news produced by citizen
journalists and content creators who have the ability to track pageviews and
earnings directly from the App. The audience can also engage with content
creators by sending them direct messages and commenting on their content via
the Reporter platform.
In 2020,
the GhanaWeb Reporter won the GNI Innovation Challenges award by the Google
News Initiative (GNI) as part of Google’s commitment to helping journalism
thrive in the digital age and to see news innovators step forward with new
thinking.
To
explore the GhanaWeb Reporter, download the GhanaWeb App for free from the
Google Play Store and App Store.
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