A lecturer at the Catholic University College of Ghana, the Reverend Father Dr. Peter Nkrumah Amponsah, has urged journalists to overcome hidden prejudices – partisan interests, and go the extra mile to report the truth.
That, he said, was the way forward not only to keep the nation calm as it edged closer to the polls but to help voters to deliver the correct verdict at the ballot.
He was speaking at a two-day training workshop held in Abesim near Sunyani for reporters and stringers of the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in five regions – Brong-Ahafo, Ashanti, Northern, Upper East and Upper West.
It is part of the effort to build their capacity for effective coverage of next month’s presidential and parliamentary elections.
The workshop comes under the “GNA tracks election 2016 project”, funded by GOIL, the nation’s foremost indigenous oil marketing company and CIMG 2015 Petroleum Company of the year.
The project seeks to sensitize the electorate on various issues raised by political parties, the elections management body and other governance institutions.
It also aims at ensuring gender and social inclusion in national politics and to provide voice for the youth, vulnerable groups, opinion leaders and everybody to contribute to the achievement of peaceful polls.
Another objective of the project is to create a platform to dissect the manifestoes of all political parties and provide in-depth analysis of each thematic area to the electorate to enable them to make an informed judgement.
The Rev Fr Dr. Amponsah underlined the need for everybody to uphold the values of truthfulness, sincerity, transparency and justice.
He indicated that without these, the effort to promote peace – a pre-requisite for progress, was likely to struggle.
He reminded the media to “effectively perform the gate-keeping and agenda-setting functions” to keep the public well-informed so as to enable them to engage in healthy political discourse.
The Rev Fr Dr. Amponsah said the media was entrusted with a vital role of protecting the freedoms and rights of the citizens and therefore advised that it avoided doing anything unethical that could polarize the society.
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(Via: NewsGhana)