WILL THE NPP AND ITS GOVERNMENT SIT DOWN QUIET TO BE GIVEN A BAD HAIR CUT BY MULTIMEDIA?
Some of us are not oblivious of the critical role the media plays in building a nation. Without the media, communication, education and information about governance and related matters will be near impossible to disseminate.
Realising the crucial role of the media and the need for journalist to practise their profession without fear or favour, it became necessary to do away with all inhibitions including expunging the criminal and seditious libel laws which had become an albatross on the necks of many media practitioners.
It took the NPP government under President Kufour, through the current President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who was then the Attorney-General to expunge these laws from our statute books to ensure total press freedom in Ghana.
As a result, when it comes to respecting and protecting the interest and the welfare of journalists, the NPP and President Akufo-Addo have always shown the way and and given practical meaning to press freedom.
The same people cannot be seen as intimidating journalists or reintroducing the so-called culture of silence which they vehemently fought against with incontrovertible evidence.
It appears some media houses have set themselves up on a head-on collision with the present government, capitalising on freedom of the press to trigger chaos and fuel insecurity in the country.
They do this by either deliberately tagging the NPP government and some of its members with negative reportage or mischievously throwing inaccurate information about government into the public domain.
A case in point is multimedia which has used its various news channels like Joy fm, Joynews and Joy TV to broadcast falsehood against the government.
Their recent report of mob attack which led to the killing of one Kaaka at Ejura has proven to be false and instead of apologising to the good people of Ghana that they erred and calling their reporter Erastus Asare Donkor to order, they have rather decided to unleash negative reportage about those who have criticised them.
One personality who has suffered from their incessant attacks is the Assin Central Member of Parliament, Hon. Kennedy Agyeapong. They have gone to the extent of orchestrating and questioningly his position as Chairman of the Security, Defence and Interior Committee of Parliament.
If there is no agenda by multimedia to drag the name of the ruling party in the mud and to create disaffection for it, why should Sampson Lardy who is also a counsel for the same media house, decide to host a programme to discuss issues to which he is a party, without giving any member of government or NPP the opportunity to respond?
Why would they report that prices of maize in the Techiman market have shot up by 300% when it is not true?
Why would they now start airing 2012 videos of the then candidate Akufo-Addo’s statements to create false impression that he has not delivered on promises?
These are but a few which require a response and this is why i believe the party leadership and government spokespersons must up and doing. They must come in and make a case to protest the organised deliberate negative media reportage.
The NPP has since 1992, always presented alternative issues to set records straight through press conferences, media engagements and other fora.
The party must not sit down to be undermined by multimedia without letting the country know the actual situation surrounding the issues.
I appeal to the national officers to officially write to multimedia to draw their attention to some of factual inaccuracies in their reportage and find ways how they can effective ways of countering their unbridled propaganda.
By Prince Adjei (Guy Gee)
