 |
| Dr Wilberforce Dzisah |
By
Duke Tagoe
The Rector of the Ghana Institute of
Journalism (GIJ), Dr Wilberforce Dzisah, is advocating measures to shield the
media from corruption.
He said the media had to be shielded
from the corruption generated by the political and economic system and
facilitated by not only the public, but the private sector.
Speaking at a three-day workshop in
Sogakope in the Volta Region on Effective Election Reporting, Dr Dzisah said
the unthinking wholesale or what he termed the “catechistic” subscription to
the free market was not the best way to secure a fearless media that serves
democracy.
The workshop was organised by the GIJ
in collaboration with the United States Embassy.
According to Dr Dzisah, although the
critical surveillance of government is an important aspect of the democratic
functioning of the media, that role had undergone a significant modification in
the 21st century.
He said the media had not only
compromised itself by its links to big businesses, but had also become a big
business.
“The media are assumed to be
independent, and to owe allegiance only to the public if they are funded by the
public, however, this theory ignores the many other influences that can shape
the media, including the political commitments and private interests of media
shareholders.”
He, therefore, called for a
redefinition of the traditional function of the media within the context of
attaining balance and journalistic objectivity at all times and, especially, as
the country prepares for the presidential and parliamentary elections in two
months’ time.
He added that in spite of the growing
conflict between the public and the private sector over the control and
ownership of the media, the ethical responsibility imposed on the media by
virtue of the professional training of journalists, should be a guiding light
without the losing sight of the wider relations of power and the influence
exerted through news management.
Dr Dzisah warned that while article
162 of the 1992 constitution insulates the state owned media from governmental
control, citizens must be equally worried about the threat presented to the
private media by their owners adding that the state was yet to see the benefits
of the exercise of the unfettered freedom and independence of the private press
by way of a legislation that shields private media from corporate owners.
He also expressed great worry at an
emerging trend of individual media companies acquiring most, if not all of a
target company’s ownership stakes and assuming dominance and the control of the
mass media in ways that did not necessarily serve or compliment the national
development effort.
Editorial
DEAD BODIES
Getting
rid of dead bodies in a manner which does not harm society is becoming
increasing difficult because of the scarcity of land in urban areas.
In some parts of the world, the cremation of
dead bodies is providing some very useful answer to how best to treat them.
A few individuals in Ghana have offered their
bodies for medical research.
The Insight finds new developments in the
handling of dead bodies in Europe most interesting.
Companies
have been set up to do this job well and some of them harvest human parts to
enable the sick to live longer.
Human
bodies are also being put on medical exhibition and the extraction of essential
liquids is also taking place should Ghana not begin to think carefully about
the disposal of dead human bodies?
No comments:
Post a Comment