News:
October 17, 2021
A lecturer at the Ghana Institute of Journalism, Dr Ebo Afful is advocating for the media to be involved in formulation of polices and should not be kept out and brought in when it comes to implementation of policies.
According to him, the media is not usually part of policy formulation, and yet when there is problem the blame is put on the media. He reiterated that politician should carry journalists along so that the media can engage citizens for them to express their views and comments.
Again, journalism should be used to support good polices of government and whether we like it or not we need to have a government and for good polices it would take media to have the good polices that we need to impact Ghanaians. “That is why we wake up early in the morning to queue to vote for who should be our next leader”.
And the kind of polices government would want to formulate, the media would highlight it for the citizens to be informed and is a critical point that, “we should consider”.
“Journalists should have views on national issues and further more do intellectual analysis. Journalism is about telling a story and should not be scared in airing his or her views, it is out of fashion to say journalists should not express their views and should only report what they see. We tell stories that move people, organise people and teach people, that is what we should be doing”.
Dr. Aful made these remarks at a media engagement organised by the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs as part of its annual engagement with civil society, media among others.
“The political class, they are always calling on journalists to report on what they are doing but if journalism is to have the needed impact on society, they should be telling stories, if they should be telling stories they are supposed to be critical, and when the media is being critical on polices formulated by the political class the response is that the media is undermining our effort”.
Additionally, the political class would say the media is sabotaging efforts of government and if care is not taken the media would be reduced to “protocol journalist” just to say what the politicians are telling us and not doing any analysis on the issues”.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com