Prof Kwame Karikari, the Executive Director of Media Foundation for West Africa, has urged staff of RADFORD FM, a new Community Radio Station in Tumu, to respect and uphold the highest standards of broadcasting ethics and professionalism.
He said the media scene was full of disturbing problems of standards, adding "The Community Radio should stand above such misuse of the great development asset that radio can be".
Prof Karikari, who was the consulting supervisor for the establishment of the station, said the media landscape was plagued with political, partisan and other sectarian biases that had unduly polarized the country and created dangerous divisions of artificial hatred.
Prof Karikari said this in a speech read on his behalf during the inauguration of RADFORD FM at Tumu in the Sissala East District.
The station was established through the collaborative effort of the Sissala Youth Network, Plan Ghana International and Sissala East and Sissala West District assemblies.
Mr. Samuel Paulos, Plan Ghana Country Director, said the decision by Plan Ghana to support the people in the establishment of the radio station was geared towards advocacy promotion, gender mainstreaming and participatory decision making.
He said the 2008 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey had it that only 13.6 percent men and 9.5 percent women in the Upper West Region had access to newspaper and television sets.
Mr. Paulos appealed to management of the station to use local language in the dissemination of information to enhance good understanding of messages to nurture the development of local language and culture to prevent them from extinction.
Madam Florence Hayen Zaato, Chairperson of the Board of Trustees of RADFORD FM, said the station would produce community-centred development programmes targeted at achieving key Millennium Development Goals such as poverty alleviation, maternal and child health as well as good environmental health management practices.
She said the station would strive to give a voice to the marginalised in society especially children and women to articulate their views on issues that affects their wellbeing.
Madam Zaato pledged that the station would strictly adhere to community radio principle of being non-sectarian and non-partisan at all times.