Election 2020: Possibility of subjective news reportage high - MFWA warns

Programmes Officer for the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA),

Kweku Krobea Asante has declared that the pluralization and privatization of the mainstream media will affect media objectivity in the upcoming elections.

According to him, the invasion of the media ownership space by political actors will affect media reportage on a large scale come December 7.

The MFWA Programmes Officer made this known in an interview with Sefa-Danquah on the Epa Hoa Daben political talk show on Happy 98.9FM.

“Fair news reportage will not happen this election because of the many media houses owned by political actors and those affiliated to them. Many will declare the results they believe is right because of who they support and that’ll be sad. Because someone with ties to a particular party owns a media house, they’ll challenge the election results on their platforms regardless of it being objective”.

Kweku Krobea Asante expressed worry about this possibility saying it can cause confusion in the country and also affect the media’s effectiveness in discharging their objective duty.

He added, the COVID-19 pandemic will also affect the media’s work. “Many media houses have laid off some of their staff because of the COVID-19 pandemic. And as they also have limited resources, media coverage may not be effective as previous elections”, he stated.