A Senior Lecturer and Media Consultant to the Ghana Journalists Association, GJA, Dr. Bonnah Koomson has advised journalists not to be swayed by their partisan and ideological affiliation to mislead the public with inaccurate and biased election reportage.
He said in as much as media practitioners are not barred to belong to a political party, that legitimacy should not in any way be compromised as they are duty bound to sustain the country’s prevailing peace and stability through balanced reportage. Dr. Koomson, gave the advice at a day’s media engagement in Tamale on election reporting jointly organized by the GJA and the Electoral Commission.
Per the GJA guidelines on election coverage, Journalists are mandated to cross-check every piece of information they receive and be fair to all subjects of the news.
Moreover, journalists can monitor election results and inform the public with provisional results. Anything short of that is unethical and amounts to electoral offence punishable by law. The Northern Regional Director of the EC, Lucas Yiryel gave some insight into the said guidelines.
About 30 journalists from the Northern, North East, Upper East and Upper West Regions attended the training workshop. They were schooled on the GJA guidelines on election reporting as well as electoral laws and preparations among other topical electoral issues.
