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The Chairman of the National Media Commission, Mr Yaw Boadu Ayeboafoh has enjoined the media to be professional and give true meaning to the fundamental rights of each and every one and it is only through that that the media shall be significant in societies. He said that if journalists cannot be trusted for the work they do then they cease to have impact and meaning in the society they live in adding that it is only when “we, as journalists, discharge our duties as honestly and objectively as we have been trained to do that the public will start to trust and confide in us.”
Mr Boadu Ayeboafoh made these remarks as the Chairperson at the 2019 World Press Freedom Day commemorated at the Ghana International Press Centre on Friday, 3rd May, 2019.
He pointed out that the over-concentration of political activists as panelists in the programmes that are ran on our airwaves, irrespective of their competencies and their capacity to understand and appreciate the topics being discussed is becoming dysfunctional and must be discouraged. He asked the media to invite people who are knowledgeable in the topics being discussed and who will discuss the topics objectively rather than the uninformed loyalty that characterises the discussions we hear on our networks.
He said that Ghanaians don’t care about who started a project and who ended it. What they need to know is whether the project is being put to the use for which it was intended. “The tax payer’s money must be put to good use to the benefit of society and that is what matters,” he added.
Mr Ayeboafoh urged the media to hold government accountable to the people of this country or risk becoming stooges of the government. He said that the journalist must exist because he is a journalist and not because of a politician.
Touching on the recent political upheaval during the Ayawaso West Wuogon elections, he noted that if we had acted decisively when Atiwa, Chereponi and the Akwatia disturbances happened, maybe the Ayawaso disturbance would not have happened.
He was emphatic that the media is not going to sit and watch people’s rights being trampled upon by a few people who decide to disrupt the progress that we have made. He said that it is the duty of the media to help the people of Ghana to fully enjoy their rights so that when they put their thumbs to the ballot paper, it will be the person they have chosen to lead them who comes into power and not someone else who, through violence, takes the reigns of government.
Quoting from the 1992 constitution, Mr Ayeboafoh said that as a media person, when he sees a public event going on and he takes his camera to record or take pictures of the event, nobody has the right to stop him because it is his fundamental right. He said that it is necessary to dialogue and understand the levels of freedom of each individual and not use force to trample on the other’s freedom. He noted that if you want to exact responsibility from someone, give the person freedom because where there is no freedom, there can be no responsibility.
