Journalists have bben urged to stay true to the ethics of the profession
Mr Stephen Boadi, Chief Enabler at Enable Growth Consult, has admonished media personnel to learn how to effectively and properly use social media tools in the dissemination of information in order to remain relevant in the era of digitisation.
Speaking at a Media Roundtable, organised by Vodafone Ghana in Cape Coast on Wednesday, he urged media houses to integrate both traditional and digital channels to promote audience interaction.
“With the traditional media you cannot tell the total number of audience you, have but with social media it is easy to know the number of people that access your content, therefore there is the need to optimize these platforms and maximize profit,” he said.
Mr Boadi who is also a Digital Media Consultant, underscored the advantages of digitisation and said it enabled media organisations to measure their audience base, engage directly with them and ultimately do good business.
He advised journalist to stay true to the ethics of the profession and ensure that information provided by their sources were properly checked for its authenticity and informative value before disseminating.
“News should be based on facts and information where truthfulness can be checked. As a journalist, you must always be accurate and fair in your reportage. You must be honest and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information,” he stated.
The Director for External Affairs at Vodafone Ghana, Mr Gayheart Mensah, called on media practitioners to embrace the confluence between technology, telecommunication and media practice.
He noted that technology in the media landscape over the past years had advanced in a positive way, which had made news dissemination easy and fast, hence the need for journalists to make good use of it.
“Technology is throwing a challenge to journalism and media institutions must embrace the challenge or else they will be thrown out of business,” he said.
Mr Mensah reaffirmed the commitment of Vodafone Ghana in engaging in projects that impacted the lives of Ghanaians in various ways especially in the areas of agriculture, education and healthcare adding that “Vodafone Ghana will continue to invest in the lives of Ghanaians”.
