50% journalists should have been in jail now - GJA VP

Ghana journalists Association's vice president, Yaw Owusu-Addo, says one half of practising journalists in Ghana should have been in jail or, in the absence of the Criminal Libel Law, be out of job by now.

Mr. Addo, who is also Ghana Broadcasting Corporation's Director of Radio, explained his grim statement on the observation that too many broadcasters and newspaper reporters are publishing too much libellous information these days.

"If this were to be the United States, they would have shut down a lot of radio stations and print media" the director quoted a team of media personnel who toured Ghana recently as remarking.

He was giving an address as guest speaker at a ceremony that formally graduated nine members of the Eastern Region branch of the GJA computer-literate reporters.

Mr. Owusu-Addo regretted that, in spite of the virtually limitless information and grammatical exactitude that the computer can offer journalists, many reporters continue to file stories full of inaccuracies and spelling mistakes.

"I am disturbed to be leading a group of journalists, in a computer era when you can check sources and spellings on the internet and computer, who still make unpardonable mistakes."

He, therefore, reminded reporters that all they need is a diskette to store notes and access to the internet to tap information.

He also tasked the media to set agenda for healthy discussion instead of mirroring the dark sides of society.

On radio journalism specifically, though stating that he is "not afraid of competition," Mr. Owusu-Addo stressed that the "profession has ethics."

Those ethics, he noted, have virtually been thrown to the dogs by many radio stations.

When you tune your radio to some stations all you hear is "hey hoo, hey hoo; and they think they are the best," Mr. Addo said.

But he pointed out that it is not those who insult ex-President Rawlings or the incumbent President who are necessarily the best journalists.

Still on the radio stations, the director of Radio urged them to play decent and educative songs like those which used to dominate the airwaves in yesteryears.

"If we all decide not to play the music of say Daddy Lumba and his clique, they will reconsider their lyrics. But for now, all the songs they are playing are profane."

A computer school called ERIMAK was the school that offered the ?10 million worth tuition, free of charge, to the Koforidua-based journalists.

Benjamin Acheampong Amankwaah, the director of the institute reported that by offering similar scholarships, ERIMAK had already trained 500 public servants, students and pupils in its catchment area.

He urged the government to evolve policies that would speed up the process of making most Ghanaians computer-literate.

While thanking the company for its kind gesture, the New Juabeng Municipal Chief Executive, Nana Kwesi Boateng, who was the guest of honour appealed to some benevolent organizations to teach the students the hardware technology so that they can repair the computer when they develop minor faults.

Another patron of the Koforidua press, New Juabeng Furniture Company Ltd., also presented furniture worth ?5 million to the GJA to set up a regional secretariat.