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GJA President extols media freedom in Ghana
Accra, April. 21, Ghanadot/GNA - Mr
Ransford Tetteh, President of the Ghana Journalist
Association (GJA), on Saturday, said press freedom has been
entrenched in the country and that the Ghanaian media would
fight any government that tried to bring back the criminal
libel law.
He told a group of West African Journalist attending a
workshop on conflict transformation in Accra that there had
been times when editors had been manipulated and some even
lost their jobs because they did not give in to the dictates
of the government of the day” he revealed.
According to Mr Tetteh, several measures had been put in
place by the constitution to ensure that the media remained
independent and devoid of control, to guarantee freedom of
the media.
Among those measures, he mentioned was the establishment of
the National Media Commission (NMC), whose membership cuts
across religion, professional and civil society groupings,
which were independent bodies.
“But what we are focusing on as a Journalist Organization
now, is the right for the NMC to have that oversight
responsibility in the granting of operating licence to
Television and radio stations to be able to regulate their
programmes” he added.
He therefore urged the other countries whose media freedom
was not the best as a result of conflicts, to keep on
pilling pressure on their governments to realize the need
for the criminal libel laws to be repealed.
Mr Tetteh however noted that, despite the achievements,
ethical standard of journalism in the country was not the
best, citing the demand for money after covering events as a
major challenge to professional conduct.
He made it clear that the GJA was not against receiving of
gifts but “to harass event organizers and demand money from
them is an affront to professional journalism and urged all
editors to help curb that trend.
According to Mr Tetteh, contrary to perceptions that it was
unpaid reporters who depended on such moneys, investigations
have shown that reporters from credible media houses also
fall foul of that ethic.
The two-week workshop is being organized by Inwent of the
International Institute of Journalism (IIJ) in Berlin, for
six countries in the West African sub-region.
GNA
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