Isaac Nana Yaw Annor, the founder and owner of AfroYard, has graduated from the University of Media, Arts and Communication (UniMAC) training programme for bloggers and digital content creators in Accra. He received his certificate at the graduation that closed the five-day course.
He was one of 100 bloggers drawn from the New Media Association of Ghana for the course, which ran from Monday 9 to Friday 13 November at UniMAC’s South Legon campus. The university’s Chancellor, Ernest Ofori Sarpong, paid for every place through his sponsorship endowment, so participants did not pay to attend.
UniMAC calls the programme the first of its kind. Its aim was simple: to help the people who now break much of Ghana’s news and entertainment online do it more accurately and more responsibly.
What the UniMAC bloggers training covered
The week was built around professional skills and ethics for digital publishing. Opening the programme in the university auditorium, Vice-Chancellor Prof. Eric Opoku-Mensah told participants that Ghana’s media space “desperately requires your commitment to accuracy, privacy and ethical standards”.
Eugene Osafo Nkansah, President of the New Media Association of Ghana, urged members to uphold responsible publishing practices and avoid misinformation. He thanked the Chancellor for the sponsorship and said he hoped more programmes like it would follow.
Dr Martin Thompson Ntem, who coordinates UniMAC’s Short Courses and Consultancy Services, explained how the training would be delivered. Ms Nana Efua Rockson, the Director of Public Affairs, took participants through the university’s 27 undergraduate and 12 postgraduate programmes and encouraged them to pursue professional certification.
Prof. Christiana Hammond, Rector of UniMAC’s Institute of Journalism, set the tone for the week. “Today, you have the rare opportunity for personal and professional growth,” she told the room.
Why it matters for AfroYard
AfroYard covers music from across Africa: new releases, charts, artist profiles and the news around them. Much of that work happens at speed, often within hours of a song dropping or a story breaking, and that is exactly where mistakes and unverified claims tend to slip through.
The training’s focus on accuracy, privacy and ethical standards goes to the heart of how AfroYard and its sister brands report. Readers can expect what Annor brings back from South Legon to shape the platform’s editorial standards, from how stories are verified to how artists and their work are credited.
What comes next
The programme is not a one-off. UniMAC says its Short Courses and Consultancy Services unit will launch an Advanced Certificate course in Multimedia Content Creation, Strategy and Blogging early in 2027. It will go further into content monetisation, platform analytics and strategic brand building, and it will be open to all practitioners in the industry.
For Annor and the other 99 bloggers who graduated at South Legon, the message from the university was clear. As Prof. Hammond put it, they leave as Ghana’s “new ethical bloggers”.
