Journalists must promote development - Ada East DCE

Ms Sarah Dugbakie Pobee, Ada East District Chief Executive has called on Journalists and other media practitioners to use their profession and medium to promote development and national cohesion.

She said it was unfortunate that instead of educating and informing residents on developmental issues, some journalists and media houses tend to use their medium to propagate falsehood about people and sometimes fueling feuds.

Ms Pobee gave the advice when a team from the Tema office of the Ghana News Agency led by Mr Francis Ameyibor, Tema Regional Manager paid a working visit to her as well as leadership of the Ada Traditional Council.

“It is not every time that we have to rush and hit the airwaves to destroy personalities and air falsehood without investigating, journalists must also use their positions to talk about developmental issues”, she added.

According to her media houses must seriously provide the necessary training on the operations, and responsibilities of district assemblies as against that of Members of Parliament (MP) to stop creating the impression that DCEs were in competition with their MPs.

She said, “while MPs represent the people in Parliament, DCEs represent the President in the various districts therefore we are not the same and our responsibilities are definitely not the same”.

She debunked some media assertions of her fighting the Ada East MP explaining that she was appointed to ensure the needed development reach the people irrespective of their party colours.

The Ada East DCE further said before appending her signature to any fund release she must ensure that all the needed procurement processes were fully followed to avoid being cited for financial malfeasance, a situation she said could lead to delays.

According to her, such acts were sometimes misinterpreted as deliberate due to political differences stressing that “if I say I will follow politics, then we won’t bring any development to areas known to be strongholds of other parties”.

Mr Ameyibor, Tema Regional Manager of the Ghana News Agency said it was part of the responsibilities of the media to build national cohesion through their reportage saying “bad news should not be the only one to sell but good ones must also get prominence”.

Mr Ameyibor said reporters of the Agency have the requisite training to be neutral and balance without political coloration and explained that the GNA has a rigid news processing mechanism.

He said GNA as the foremost national wire service news provider always focuses on national development and has moved away from the old paradigm of bad news sells, a well-packaged good news is what sells.

Mr Ameyibor condemned what is termed as ‘mafia journalism or media terrorism’ and stressed that GNA holds the key against fake news publication and appealed to public and private institutions to depend on the Agency for news dissemination.

He indicated that to ensure protecting the interest of the state and serve as an intermediary between the public and government, the GNA-Tema was creating a communication partnership with the various district assemblies within its jurisdiction to educate residents on its policies and projects as well as carry feedback from them to the assemblies.