Media Discuss Indecent Practice

Representatives of media organizations in the country have taken exception to what they described as indecency in journalism practice in the country.

They assembled at the Alisa Hotel to discuss the trend and initiate a campaign to ensure clean media practice in the country’s democratic dispensation.

The conference was sponsored by Alisa Hotel at the end of which a communiqué was issued asking that indecency should not be tolerated in the media and that the regulations of the National Media Commission and ethics of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) be adhered to towards this direction.

Media houses, they resolved, should introduce clear editorial guidelines to guide their operations, adding that the electronic media must use voice delay equipment to prevent indecent language from getting on air.

Media practitioners, they decided, should be assertive and resist the tendency to be used by politicians to promote their agenda.

Editors working with media organizations owned by politicians should use their professional expertise to discard contents which do not conform to accepted standards, they added.

The National Media Commission should apply the powers bestowed on it by the Constitution, they went ahead, to ensure decent practice and to go to court where need be.

The programme, Campaign For Decency is the initiative of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) to commemorate its 76th year of establishment.

Kwabena Sarpong Anane, the Acting Director General of GBC, who took part in the deliberations alongside the Deputy MD of TV3, Alhassan Haruna, among others, said the assembly will send a message to “both electronic and print media leadership and the nation that it is about time we moved beyond the proverbial ‘peace we enjoy’ to a state of decency and socio-political responsibility.”

Instead of stepping up to the plate to take responsibility regarding concerns raised about shortcomings in media practice “we merely pick them up and pass them on.”

He noted that “what shapes the integrity of the media mustn’t be legal instruments on defamation. What shapes our integrity must be our inbuilt unbiased sense of judgment and burning quest to be faithful and loyal to Ghana our motherland.”

Earlier at another forum commemorating GBC’s 76th anniversary, he acknowledged what he described as the genuine concerns of different political persuasions in the country which especially warm up whenever the political season approaches.

“All of these concerns I must say are entirely genuine and completely understandable. Frankly it would be naïve not to expect these challenges, especially given the vibrancy of our budding and globally applauded democracy.”

He promised that the GBC would take the trouble to iron out challenges when they rear their heads, adding “we acknowledge that covering the whole nation is credible and stands as a monumental plus to our services, but that will not in any way be substituted for quality content. The sky is the limit and we will strive to get better.”