Media freedom must be exercised with more responsibility - Kufuor

Accra, July 18, GNA - President John Agyekum Kufuor has asked the media in Africa to be mindful of the fragility of the Continent and ensure that it exercised its freedom with greater sense of responsibility. Africa was emerging and still fragile and this was something the media needed to appreciate and be sensitive to, he said when a delegation from the CNN and MultiChoice paid a courtesy call on him at the Castle, Osu, on Friday. "Freedom of expression, yes, but this must be balanced with more responsibility."

Mr Tony Maddox, Executive Vice President and Managing Director of CNN, International, led the delegation. They are in Accra for the CNN-MultiChoice African Journalist of the Year 2008 Award Ceremony to be held at the Banquet Hall on Saturday. It is the second time in 13 years that the prestigious event is being celebrated in Ghana and comes at a time the nation is being acknowledged as a "model of democracy" in Africa.

Twenty-Two journalists, who distinguished themselves from across the Continent, have been selected to be honoured at the ceremony. President Kufuor noted that there had been tremendous improvement in the country's media landscape. There was so much freedom of expression and this made Ghana the right place for the celebration, he said. Mr Maddox said their return after 13 years was influenced by the fact that journalists operated in freedom.