Media charged to focus on development agenda

New Edubiase (Ash), Aug. 03, GNA - Mr Osei Poku, Adansi South District Co-ordinating Director, has called on the Ghanaian media to make the country's development agenda their main focus rather than making issues out of frivolities, especially when it involved politicians.

He observed that the media, which is an effective tool in promoting the development agenda of the country could also derail the same process if it unduly highlighted petty issues at the expense of more important ones.

Mr Poku, who was speaking to the Ghana News Agency at New Edubiase on Wednesday, contended that though the old journalistic maxim that "personalities make news" was a truism, our peculiar circumstances and the stage of development needed a shift of the media spotlight from personalities to developmental issues to move the country forward.

"Time has come for the media to get into research and come out with write-ups which would expose problems relating to development and other critical issues crucial to the nation's development", he added. Mr Poku decried the practice of some journalists who allow politicians to influence them with money to blackmail their political opponents, saying, it contradicted the ethics of journalism.