GIBA schools members on code of conduct
The Vice President of the Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association (GIBA), Mr Akwasi Agyeman, has appealed to members of the association to respect the code of conduct of the GIBA in order to bring sanity onto the country’s media landscape.
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He said respect for the code would also help to promote the peace and stability of the country.
Speaking at a one-day workshop for members of GIBA in the Ashanti and Brong Ahafo regions, Mr Agyeman said although there were many developmental issues that could be discussed to bring about progress, most media houses failed to do that and rather focused on issues that retarded progress.
He educated the members on the regulation and challenged them to ensure compliance to avoid being dragged to the National Media Commission (NMC) to be sanctioned.
The Deputy Executive Secretary of the NMC, Mr Alex Bannerman, asked media houses to desist from allowing their platforms to be used to forment trouble in the country.
He said most hate-speeches came from people outside the media circles, and that if radio presenters, editors and programme moderators decided to be firm, watch and prevent people from using their platforms to say bad things, it would be very difficult for such people to be heard.
Mr Bannerman said now that the Supreme Court was about to give its verdict, there was the need for all media houses to be fair and firm to prevent their network from being used to create confusion in the country.
He hinted that as part of measures to help ensure sanity on the media landscape, the NMC was working on a content regulation policy which would help control what came to the public domain.
Mrs Charlotte Osei, Chairperson of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), cautioned media houses against aligning with political parties since it was very dangerous and could bring about conflicts.
She also called on radio stations to desist from engaging political agents to debate national issues since irrespective of the truth, they would always tow political lines and suggested to them to engage the services of subject specialists to discuss national issues.
The workshop, organised by GIBA, in collaboration with STAR-Ghana, with support from USAID and DANIDA, was aimed at sensitising the members to the need to keep their gate-keeping roles in shape and how to prevent people from using their platforms to create conflict in the country.
