Ameyaw Debrah

Ameyaw Kissi Debrah is a Ghanaian journalist and entertainment blogger, and one of the first people in the country to turn a personal blog into a full-time media business. He started AmeyawDebrah.com in 2008, while working as entertainment editor at GhanaWeb, and has since added Ameyaw TV and a string of editorial and consulting roles to his name. For many readers inside and outside Ghana, his site was where celebrity news broke first.

Adisadel and KNUST

Debrah was born in Accra on 21 July 1981. At Adisadel College in Cape Coast he edited the school magazine, which he took over in 1999. He went on to the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, where he studied Publishing and was named Best Publishing Student in 2005.

From print to the web

His national service posting was at Ovation International, the glossy celebrity magazine, where he reported on Ghanaian entertainment for an international readership. He then wrote a column for the Star newspaper. In 2007 he began filing for pan-African websites such as Jamati.com, Orijin-ent.com and ModernGhana, and for the Netherlands-based Voices of Africa project.

In 2008 GhanaWeb hired him as entertainment editor, and the same year he launched his own blog. It grew fast. By 2010 it had its own iPhone app, and in 2012 he left GhanaWeb to blog full time.

Pulse, Yen and Ameyaw TV

He kept the blog going while taking bigger jobs. In 2014 he joined Ringier Ghana to run Pulse Ghana, and in the same period managed the careers of the rappers Coptic and Pappy Kojo. In September 2015 he became editor-in-chief of Yen.com.gh, the news site then owned by Genesis Technology, and stayed until September 2017.

In 2018 he launched Ameyaw TV, a video arm with short formats such as Daily Buzz, News in One and Trend Mill. He has also worked as a correspondent for StarGist on Africa Magic, contributed to EbonyLife TV and Glitz Africa magazine, and served as an ambassador for Malta Guinness's Africa Rising campaign.

Why he matters

Before Debrah, Ghanaian entertainment news lived mainly in newspapers, radio and a handful of general news portals. He showed that one person with a laptop, good contacts and a steady daily output could build an audience that rivalled established outlets, and that advertisers and brands would pay for it. It is a model many later Ghanaian entertainment blogs have followed.

His work has been recognised with awards including Best Blogger or Online Reporter (Ghana) at the City People Entertainment Awards in 2013, Best Showbiz and Entertainment Blog in 2013 and Best Blogger in 2015 at the Ghana Blogging and Social Media Awards, and Social Media Personality of the Year at the Pan African Humanitarian Awards in 2015.

Personal life

Debrah married in March 2018 and is a father of two sons. One of them, Samuel Amo-Ameyaw, is a footballer with Southampton FC in England.