The Politics of Ghanaian News Media 2
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri

This is the second in a two-part series DAILY GUIDE is publishing to explore ethics, objectivity and politics in Ghanaian news media. Last week’s entry focused on owners and politicians. This week, we talk to practitioners.

Ghanaians wake up every morning to new information on politics, health, environment, sports, entertainment and general news, either from the radio, television or newspaper.
However, political news takes the lead in most headlines and front pages. It is also among the top issues debated and talked about in offices and departments. Readers and listeners anticipate political news everyday.
Political reporters therefore go the extra mile to bring readers and listeners information that will interest them. But many are prone to the influence of their media houses, media owners, politicians and their own ideologies.

The politics of political writing
There’s a general stance that political news is full of biases and sensationalism, even though it gives diverse views and sides to partisan issues, mainly from a partisan perspective.
“It is not wrong for our media to do political reporting, or even for any media house to say, ‘We support this ideology’,” said Sulemana Braimah, deputy executive director of Media Foundation for West Africa. “But it’s about detailed analysis and professionalism.”

Braimah worked in print media for almost five years, before going back to school and taking a position with the foundation. He is involved in a number of media consultation projects, including training.
“Issues of objectivity, analysis, facts, professionalism and ethics is where for me journalism is lacking to a greater extent when it comes to political writing,” said Braimah.
Ajoa Yeboah-Afari, a 61-year veteran journalist, is a coordinator with The Ghana Media Standards Improvement Project and chairperson of the Editor’s Forum, Ghana. She also highlights a lack of professionalism as the main reason for shabby political reporting.
“The word I always site is professionalism,” said Yeboah-Afari. “If you are doing your work in a professional way, then the opinion of another person should not matter to you.”
In her view, a journalist must write his or her report as factually as possible. That means giving the right background so that all sides have equal say.
“You are respecting everybody’s position or opinion,” she added.
Bright Blewu, General Secretary of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), said that papers tend to tell the truth piecemeal and are selective in the news they publish.
“We have the objective ones in the middle who will say both sides of a story,” he said. “For me, that’s real journalism, because the other side is propaganda.”
Blewu said political coverage is too charged. He wants reporters to be more reflective, to acknowledge politicians as human beings and bring a degree of analysis to the mistakes they make.
“Sometimes, this happens because we have too many media houses that are not in the middle,” he said. “They are aligned with political parties; therefore, they flavour reports with too much of politics just to get the temperature heated.”

Ownership and accountability
As temperatures rise ahead of the 2012 elections, owners of media houses may influence journalists to report in favour of a particular party.
“Journalists alone do not determine the media culture of a country,” said Blewu. “Our owners must know they have a contribution to make. They can believe in social democratic ideals, or liberal democracy, but at the end of the day, they must let the journalists do their work.”
However, some journalists are beholden to their management. They are aware of their owner’s political affiliation and tend to be cautious in their reportage.
“You are extra careful not to offend your media owner,” Ms Yeboah-Afari elaborated. “It takes our colleagues with courage to express their opinion which is contrary to what the owner expects.”
At the same time, said Braimah, ownership influence is reducing, as up-and-coming media owners are business people, not journalists.
“The few political owners are also retiring into the background,” he added.
The editors of the 1960s, many of which were in charge of influential newspapers, have more recently allowed younger reporters and editors to take over.
However, there are still publishers who act as editors. To a large extent, they determine what comes out in the newspapers.
“I think somehow our journalists have been influenced by the attitudes of their senior colleagues in the newsroom,” said Braimah.
Career-minded journalists wind up catering to the culture of front page stories, which are predominantly political. This trend has cut across the Ghanaian media landscape with few exceptions.
“Your first responsibility as a journalist is to the people, regardless of the political persuasion,” said Blewu. “The journalist is like a referee in a football match. You might have sympathies toward one team, but it doesn’t mean you favour one.

“That’s the beauty of democracy, if the people can get all the sides of the story and then make informed judgment about.”

Professional intervention
The Ghana Journalists Association Code of Ethics is composed of 17 articles that set ethical and professional guidelines for journalists. They cover everything from dealing with grief stricken sources to plagiarism. In particular, Article 17 warns against sensationalism, while Article 1, subsection 2, reinforces the public’s right to unbiased information.
“We as journalists must strain to get above this problem of getting tied up in politics when reporting political news because we sympathize with one political party,” said Blewu. “We need to fly above it, not below the clouds.”
He said people must get into journalism because they want to make society better.
“You get into it because you stand for the truth. You must not compromise on the truth. If you don’t have a little bit of that passion, then I think journalism is not the place for you, as the profession is a dangerous weapon to those who mishandle it.”
The notion of the media as a weapon is not lost on Braimah.
“The same media that we think helped us get out of dictatorship and brought us into our democracy can also serve as a powerful tool that can pull our democracy backwards in terms of what they do,” he said.
Blewu advocates for a broadcasting law.
“I think that, as a country, we must have policies, whether written or unwritten,” he said. “For instance, a broadcasting law. We need a broadcasting law.”
He acknowledged the positive effect of liberalized media, but warned that there must be a set of rules to manage the ethics of its production.
He reminded news-consumers of their power. They can determine which media houses survive based on what they choose to read, watch and listen to.
“The Media Commission should also investigate thoroughly into media misconduct,” he said. “If a media house does the wrong thing, look at the issue and say they have done the wrong thing.”
He further urged journalists to be cautious about sweeping statements, which can be malicious. Statements in the media, he continued, must be validated, lest they lead to unnecessary rancour.
“Our journalist training institutions are not doing the best in terms of training,” said Braimah. “It’s important for our institutions to be practically oriented. Before you come out, there’s a project that says you are to produce a three- or four-part feature on an issue – and you’re getting graded on that.”
Braimah also called on news editors to resolve that not everything passes as news. Credible media is selective.
“We want editors who say, ‘We are building a newspaper or radio station, and not everything will pass.’”
Furthermore, he called on journalists to analyse and research a topic before writing the story.
Sources, too, often lack depth. Reporters regularly go for sources that are most accessible, leaving marginalized voices out of their coverage.
The Ghana Media Standards Improvement Project runs a number of outreach programmes to improve on these faults, said Yeboah-Afari. They operate in 16 media houses across Ghana, six of which are newspapers, while the rest are radio stations.
“First of all,” she said, “when they get there they have an introduction and assess the challenges that a particular media house faces, and then they agree together with the editor or the station manager and the staff to agree on the way forward through training and seminars.
“We work with colleagues to make a more professional product.”

Does the public trust the media?
According to Blewu, Ghanaians remembers the years leading up to the 1992 constitution. They prefer a free press.
“The extent to which it’s free can be debated,” he said, “but take the free media away and you scuffle people of the oxygen that they need to live.”
Braimah said there’s no option for now.
“You have to listen to the radio,” he said, “and radio is what we have. I believe right now in Ghana, the media is just giving people what they think they want – not what they need for development.”
For her part, Yeboah-Afari said the public is suspicious of news that challenges popular opinion.
“Should the public be leading the media,” she asked, “or should the media be leading the public?”