The West Africa Network for Peace Building (WANEP-Ghana), has expressed concern about the use of vindictive and provocative language on the Ghanaian media networks.
It said the derogatory remarks that are creeping into the media landscape had the potential of plunging the nation into chaos if not checked immediately.
The National Coordinator of WANEP, Mr. Justin Bayor, said this at a media consultative workshop in Takoradi.
He appealed to the Ghana Journalists Association, the Private Newspaper Publishers Association of Ghana and the Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association, to put in place measures to ensure sanity and professional and ethical standards in the media landscape.
Mr. Bayor said, WANEP-Ghana had instituted measures in 14 violence-prone communities in the northern Ghana to avert violence during the elections in December.
He mentioned some of the communities as Bawku, Bimbila,Gushiegu, Bupui and Wa; and said the NGO was working with youth groups and women’s organisations to identify early warning signals to avert violence.
It said the NGO had instituted a project dubbed: “Media Responsibility Project" (MEREP) to sensitise and educate media practitioners, media managers, radio presenters, media owners and production staff on the need to avoid inflammatory language on their networks.
The project is funded by the World Association of Christian Organisation and the German Embassy.
Mr. Bayor said currently media commercialisation had superseded public interest and described it as dangerous and detrimental to the country’s fledgling democracy.
He appealed to media practitioners and political party communicators to use civilized language to avert conflict.
Some participants at the workshop called for regular training of media practitioners on the modern trends in reporting.
They said more powers should be given to the National Media Commission and National Communication Authority to sanction and withdraw licenses of defaulting media houses to ensure sanity in the media.**
