CDD-Ghana, MFWA train 150 journalists in election reporting & safety of journalists

Ahead of the 2020 elections, the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) and the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) have trained 150 journalists in Media Literacy, Election Reporting and Safety of Journalists. The journalists were selected from all 16 regions across the country.

The three-part series of workshops, organized in the northern, middle and southern zones (Tamale, Kumasi and Accra, respectively), were aimed at promoting media professionalism and safety before, during and after the elections.

Given the critical role of the media in the country’s democratic processes, the training also sought to enhance the media’s skills in providing accurate information, creating platforms for participatory governance and promoting peace.

Renowned academics, media ethics and fact-checking advocates and security experts took participants through relevant modules such as hate speech reporting, public interest reporting; guarding against fake news; safety of journalists during election reporting; and peace promotion through reportage.

Addressing participants at the Greater Accra workshop, Dr. Kojo Pumpuni Asante, CDD-Ghana’s Director for Advocacy and Policy Engagement, stressed the need for the media to uphold high ethical standards while reporting on the elections. “The December general election is a crucial one,” he said.

“Recent developments such as the 2019 Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election and its fall-out and the increasing politically-charged atmosphere in the country need not remind us that we all, as stakeholders in our national development, need to tread cautiously in all our public engagement.”

Mr Sulemana Braimah, Executive Director of the MFWA, reiterated this call.

“People rely on the media to let them know what the real issues,” he said. “We [the media] have a lot of work to do because people expect a lot from us and we should not fail them.”

The media training project forms part of CDD-Ghana’s “Electoral Support Project” which has been made possible by the generous support of the United State Agency for International Development (USAID-Ghana).