Prof. Karikari rubbishes BBC’s ‘Sex for Grades’ doncumentary

Prof. Kwame Karikari, founder of Media Foundation for West Africa and A veteran lecturer in media studies has rubbished the latest investigative piece by the BBC Africa Eye, dubbed ‘Sex for Grades’.

The one-hour documentary captured two lecturers of the University of Ghana in compromising situations with “students”. The school’s management has since interdicted the two, Prof. Ransford Gyampo and Dr. Paul Kwame Butakor. They are therefore being investigated.

“I have a difficulty accepting that the network of creating a scenario and calling it journalism can be accepted as journalism. I’m wondering if the BBC will apply the same method to subjects in the UK or in Europe or North America… In investigative journalism, the journalist is not the subject the journalist is investigating… So how come the BBC is saying that they are creating a scenario on one hand and calling it what they claim it to be?” Prof. Karikari quizzed.

“I have a difficulty for anybody to tell me that the journalist creates his or her own scenario and reports it. We do know that in journalism, what a journalist reports has to be objective to the journalist not his own creation,” he added.

The documentary focused on sexual harassment by lecturers in Universities in Ghana and Nigeria. But Prof Karikari said the video did not back the BBC’s ‘Sex for Grades’ allegations.