We have a bounded duty

Journalism Professors Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw have been held up as champions of the  Agenda Setting theory, stressing that "mass media have the ability to transfer the salience of items of their news agenda to the public”.

That means the media exert influence on their audiences and they are therefore required to be careful in the way that they present information such that they do not mislead their audiences with disinformed, uninformed, malinformed or misinformed conclusions.

They must be factual and objective, but not neutral.

We in the media must be aware of the Gatekeeping, Framing and Priming theories so that we discharge our obligations devoid of accusations of bias or unprofessionalism.

At a seminar on "Corruption and Human Rights in East Africa", at Entebbe in December 1994, Journalists and media organisations were enjoined to adopt a more responsible outlook by eschewing sensationalism, one-sided publications and media trial since these undermine public confidence in the veracity and accuracy of reports.

It was argued that "such untoward practices detract from the worth of media practitioners and undermine the role of the media, which remains crucial and fundamental in the process of civic education".

Today, I am looking inward at how the media unjustifiably and constructively malign individuals accused of misapplying or misusing public funds based on audit reports.

Technically, audit reports are not necessarily facts but the opinions of the auditors based on certain observations they make in the course of their work.

This is stated clearly by the auditors, yet our media personnel join politicians to baselessly make remarks that are offensive and sometimes defamatory of the suspects.

Such reckless remarks gain undeserved approval; some of them come up at the hearings of the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament.

Audit

Currently in circulation are the findings of a special forensic audit requested by President John Dramani Mahama on the funding of the 13th African Games in 2024.

As the immediate past chairman of the National Media Commission, I felt scandalised about what I read about the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, that there was no training and especially the accusation that GBC lost USD3.6 million from the marketing of the event, because I knew that the contract with GBC was about the production of the feed and did not include marketing.

I got to know because immediately after the games, there were allegations of corruption by workers of the GBC, but upon a discreet search, it was realised that GBC took up the challenge of coverage at the last minute to save and protect the image of the country.

I felt let down by the media fraternity for limiting the stories to the highlights of the audit findings in the 700-page volume, suggesting that it was bulky and, therefore, instead of professional editing, they resorted to  "butchering" the report.

The good thing, though, is that they reported that the audit report acknowledged that the responses of all those affected by the exercise had been added as appendices.

That gave me hope that there was further information that could help the public have a better understanding and appreciation of the issues involved.

Based on this hope, I tried to reach out to a number of media outlets, one of which, Graphic Online, decided to put into the public domain the responses of GBC.

Following that, many Ghanaians have realised that sometimes audit observations could be in error or downright speculative.

People must not be convicted by media trials based solely on audit reports, which have not been contested openly, because the auditors may lack understanding of some specialised areas and make conclusions that are uninformed or misleading. 

For instance, those who understand the broadcasting industry know that there is a difference between broadcasting rights and marketing rights.

As it is now, the Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA) has engaged different companies to sell the broadcasting rights and marketing rights of the World Cup.

One organisation is ensuring that as many broadcasting stations acquire rights to broadcast the matches live, whilst another is marketing the event to gain enough from advertisers and sponsors.

Broadcast

For as long as Ghanaian media houses, through the government, have acquired the right to live broadcast of the matches, their obligation is to play the adverts of the major sponsors of the event and then try to make something for themselves through local advertisement.

They have no obligation to market the World Cup beyond enticing their viewers to watch the matches so that they can raise some funds to defray a percentage of the cost incurred by the state and to cover their airtime and missed programmes.

Because of what happened before GBC entered the fray, certain contractual obligations were handled directly by the Local Organising Committee.

To suggest that GBC management was irresponsible and yielded to corruptible influences would, in other circumstances, beyond privilege, amount to defamation.

It is needless to bring oil to fire when the auditors seem to lack knowledge about broadcasting rights and marketing rights.

The recent incident of the open humiliation of a dedicated, committed and humble public servant at the hands of the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament, due to a reporting error by the Auditor- General, must serve as a foundation to guide us all, from the Executive and all its agencies, through Parliament and all its agencies to the general public, to be circumspect in our comments about findings from audit reports until they are subjected to justiciable scrutiny.

What has now come to the attention of the public as the response from GBC to queries raised and rejected by the Auditor — General could suggest that all those indicted might have offered rational and justifiable responses which were nonetheless rebuffed by the audit team for whatever reasons, including their own lack of knowledge and appreciation of certain processes.

I was myself a near victim of such a forensic audit when I left the NMC as Executive Secretary to take up appointment as Editor of the Daily Graphic in 2003.

Although I had gone to the committee and offered my willingness to cooperate, I was never invited to respond to any query until I received a draft copy of the report through subterfuge. 

My integrity was protected only because the then Chairman, Mr Nutifafa Kuenyehia, who was equally never consulted, saw a draft copy and responded to all the allegations because every expenditure had been made based on the decisions of the commission at formal meetings and I only acted on legitimate instruction.

Whoever had a beef to fight with me got bruised and battered.

My angst with the media for not giving us full information is that, that is against our profession as maintained by the American Society of Editors which submits that " the primary purpose of gathering and distributing information is to serve the general welfare by informing the people and enabling them to make judgements on the issues of the time" as well as the preamble to the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists that "  public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy.

The duty of the journalist is to further those ends in seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues. Conscientious journalists from all the media and specialists strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty".

I plan under Section 18 (1) of The Right to Information Act, 2019 (ACT 989) to write to the GBC and the Auditor General to seek all the correspondence between the GBC management and the audit team to find out how the audit team accused the GBC management of not opening up discussions about the 13th African Games when records indicate that there were several management meetings before, during and after the games for which minutes were produced.

Or is it that the allegations by some of the union leaders were diffused and saturated the ears and minds of the audit team with prejudice or without open minds?