A Charge to Keep: Respecting Our Code of Ethics (1)
Globally, it is held that the prime responsibility of journalists and the media is to serve as bulwarks against corruption and oppression, serve as defenders of the fundamental rights of the people and safeguards for the rule of law.
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These are the only means to give meaning and function to democracy. The media have to work towards the promotion and the liberty of the people.
Where the media act with responsibility and act professionally, especially within their own set of code of ethics , as observed by Richard B. Sheridan, no matter how powerful or corrupt the government, politicians and all the actors in the society, they would be held in check and made to account to the people.
Power of free press
As Sheridan puts it, ‘Give me but the liberty of the press; And I will give the [Prime] Minister a servile and corrupt House of Commons. I will give him full swing of the patronage of office. I will give him the whole host of ministerial influence. I will give him all the power that place can confer upon him to purchase submission and overcome resistance. And yet, armed with the liberty of the press, I will go forth undismayed. I will shake down from its height corruption and bury the ruins of the abuse it was meant to shelter.’
This must remind us of the obligation imposed on us by Article 162(5) of the 1992 Constitution that, ‘ All agencies of the mass media shall, at all times, be free to uphold the principles, provisions and objectives of this constitution, and shall uphold the responsibility and accountability of the government to the people of Ghana’.
Media obligation
If we are to discharge the obligation in the best interest of our people, then we must respect the provisions of our code of ethics as essential for societal harmony and order. Indeed, we need to work within rules and regulations, especially those that we ourselves have developed to guide us in the discharge of our onerous responsibilities. Self-regulation is considered more functional for the effective operation of any free and responsible media. We must give meaning and respect to our own code of ethics and reflect global best practices. It becomes pertinent to look at a few such codes to assess our own code since our code offers us an opportunity to remain essential to national development and democracy.
The Principle of the American Society of Editors notes, among other things, that ‘The primary purpose of gathering and distributing news and opinions is to serve the general welfare by informing the people and enabling them to make judgements on the issues of their time. Newspaper men and women who abuse the power of their professional role for selfish motives or unworthy purposes are faithless to that public trust.’
Otumfuo charges media
At the 19th GJA awards night, the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, clearly set before us our collective and individual responsibilities and obligations to give meaning and function to our profession as journalists. He must have struck a chord when he stated that media freedom should never be construed to mean reckless and baseless attacks on the integrity of innocent persons. Indeed, as journalists, we will not allow any other to unjustifiably abuse our sensibilities or sensitivities. That is why the recent upsurge of unwarranted attacks on media personnel in the course of discharging their professional duties has attracted diffused and intense condemnation.
The same thought has informed some of our members to fault the association for doing little in protecting our members from abuse and invidious encroachment and undermining of media freedom, which has been guaranteed copiously in the 1992 constitution. We need to defend our profession from violent attacks but we equally need to maintain professionalism, irrespective of the odds. That is the only way to keep faith with our people and enable the profession to influence and shape national discourse, otherwise our claim as agenda setters would be vain.
MEDIA INTEGRITY
But the Asantehene is not alone in his observation about the lack of integrity and professionalism in the media. A similar observation had been made by Nana Susubribi Krobea Asante (Nana Dr. S.K.B.Asante) Omanhene of Asokore, Ashanti. Nana made a scathing indictment of the media by saying that, ’The fear of a knock on the door by security men in the early hours of the morning in despotic regimes should not be replaced by the fear of encountering groundless attacks on a person’s character whenever he or she opens a newspaper or views or listens to the electronic media under our constitutional dispensation. In short, the media should not be turned into an instrument of personal vendetta or abuse’.
We cannot discount this sentiment as baseless knowing the liberal democratic credentials and principled stand Nana has for free media, as well as his role as a member of the Committee of Experts which developed the draft for the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana. We must accept that we have a responsibility and a charge to keep.
RESPONSIBILITY
Since journalists are in the forefront of social change, advocacy and democracy, they need to weigh the consequences of their actions on the larger interest of society. It is imperative for all of us to recognise the need to be professional at all times to sustain the public trust and confidence. This is the only way by which we can ward off any agitations for ruthless measures to be imposed to control media. We have to safeguard the media freedom provided for in our constitution. We must give meaning to the regime of self-regulation as a functional means of developing free and responsible media.
AGITATIONS FOR LAWS
The agitations for the National Media Commission to be given teeth to bite stem from the fact that the public holds the view that the media have become irresponsible, dictatorial and hawkish. To such people, self-regulation does not make sense and only the law could help shape and tame the media. But we know that it is only when we are allowed and enabled to regulate our profession by ourselves that the legal guarantees of media freedom will have meaning, function and impact.
That is why we need to assess the quality of our codes of ethics against international best practice. Globally, a good journalistic code of ethics must have provisions on right to true information, issues of bribes and personal integrity, respect for privacy and human dignity, objectivity, corrections and rejoinders, transparent and fair means of securing information and photographs, respect for embargoes, sensitivity to reporting about children, the vulnerable such as victims of sexual assault, people in grief or distress, plagiarism, respect for national and ethnic values and assurance of confidentiality. There may be others with respect to laws on secrecy, but we are fortunate that the constitution guarantees the right of our people to information. That is why we need to intensify advocacy to put pressure on the government to pass the Freedom of Information Law.
OBJECTIVE OF GJA CODE
As journalists, we must agree with the preamble to our code which sees the code as ‘ representing an effort by journalists themselves to set high professional standards in order to ensure that Ghana enjoys not only a free but responsible media in the hope that this code will serve as a guide to journalists.’ The Society of Professional Journalists maintains that, ‘Professional integrity is the cornerstone of the journalist’s credibility’. Members of the society share a dedication of ethical behaviour and adopt this code to declare the society’s principles and standards.
Indeed, these constitute the major pillars underpinning the GJA code of ethics. Beyond these provisions the GJA code stipulates the need to separate comments from facts and to avoid sensationalism and misplaced headlines. Since we are affiliated to both WAJA and IFJ and our own code reflects best practice in global media ethics, we have to respect the provisions in our code. We have to act to win the trust and confidence of our people since as the SPJ emphasises, ‘Good faith with the public is the foundation of all worthy journalism, with truth as the ultimate goal’ mindful that, ‘Sound practice makes clear the distinction, news reports should be free of opinion or bias and must represent all sides in an issue’.
IFJ/WAJA CODES
Both the IFJ and WAJA enjoin journalists to report only on matters whose facts and origins are within their knowledge and which they can verify. This means that we should avoid hearsay and publication of material whose source we cannot ascertain or confirm. We are enjoined to be truthful and accurate in our reports and comments. We must equally agree with the SPJ that, ‘ The primary purpose of gathering and distributing news and opinion is to serve the general welfare by informing the people and enabling them to make judgements on the power of their professional role for selfish motives or unworthy purposes are faithless to the public trust’.
These constitute the pillars and foundation upon which the GJA code of ethics is built. Beyond these best practices, the GJA code provides the necessity for the Ghanaian journalist to separate comments from facts to avoid the charge of bias.
ELECTRONIC MEDIA
With particular reference to radio and perhaps television, we need to take notice of public reaction and never take that for granted. Several adverse comments have been made about phone-ins and the mode of selecting panels to discuss issues. The media have been accused of dictatorship. We cannot ignore the adverse comments which undermine the efficacy of the media as catalysts for national development.
Here again, it is pertinent to refer to an observation by the Asokore Omanhene on phone-ins. He notes that, ‘Another issue worth debating is whether the fascination of the public with ventilating their views on radio talk shows does not detract from a more serious engagement with the development process either in the form of more rigorous analytical work or more practical-oriented activities. One sometimes gets the uneasy impression that the profusion of talk on radio exhausts one’s meaningful endeavour and that some really enjoy freedom of expression on an empty stomach’.
RADIO/TV DISCUSSIONS
On the composition of panels and quality of discussion, Nana shares the views expressed by Otumfuo Osei Tutu, maintaining that, ‘The intellectual content of the discussions, the poor professional and technical performance of the presenters and producers of these programmes, the total lack of virility in discourse, the pervasive attempt of a panellist or presenter to outshout the other actors, the level of abusive or profane language used are all a travesty of the solemn democratic values implicit in freedom and independence of the media. In short, they debase democracy and constitutionalism’.
Nana is not done yet as he observes further that, ‘Some TV (electronic media) discussions have not been particularly illuminating. Little effort is made to involve recognised experts in discussing subjects which require considerable expertise. Some panellists pontificate with little restraint or qualification in areas where even experts would tread warily. Contrary to the acknowledged principle of diversity and pluralism in broadcasting, the same persons seem to constitute a permanent panel. Furthermore, panels sometimes appear to be the preserve of professional journalists. That hardly admits cross-fertilisation of ideas or diversity of approaches or pluralism’.
PERTINENT OBSERVATIONS
These are observations that cannot easily be dismissed. We have to think and address them to ensure that we become more functional and essential to national development. Indeed, that is the object of the remark by Prof. Kwame Karikari, that ‘What is suitable for our system can best be arrived at through informed, non-partisan, non-sectarian public discussion aimed at building a viable, relevant, professional and reliable media system’ that the public will feel proud of and trust. Prof. Karikari is no stranger to our profession. He is deeply involved in the training of journalists, once served as Director-General of the Ghana Broadcasting and presently involved in research on attacks on media freedom and unprofessional conduct of the media.
All these observations have been addressed with remedies in the code of ethics of the journalism bodies to which we are affiliated. Therefore, we must respect and abide by the provisions of our codes of ethics, which we have willingly and voluntarily subscribed to, to guide the conduct of our work.
IMPACTING OUR SOCIETY
For, if we do, we would in the words of Aidan White, make a meaningful impact on the Ghanaian society, since the ‘open-minded search for solutions produce a remarkably sensitive and non-sensational mix of journalism and the telling of the story to illustrate just how the media contribute to building public confidence by doing the simple things right, promoting open debate, providing reliable information, exposing wrong-doing and corruption and explaining the impact of events of the world in which we live’.
That is a charge ingrained in our social contract as a concomitant of the guarantee of media freedom. That is in consonance with the objective of George Chaplin, a Honolulu editor when he submits that, ‘If people learn to take charge of change and guide it well, all of humanity is the beneficiary. If we fail, we invite disaster. What an exciting and wonderful challenge to our intelligence and our compassion; so our dedication to the proposition that the betterment of the individual is the noblest of all dreams’.
