Okaikoi Tells Journalists To Focus on Poverty

Ghana's Minister of Information, Mrs. Zita Saba Okaikoi, says that journalists are needed to be the architects of poverty eradication and ignorance. Her speech ended a two-week workshop in Ghana funded by the United Nations Development Programme.

Mrs. Okaikoi told those in attendance that the primary concern of media practitioners should be the socio-economic and infrastructural development of the nation. She also emphasised that journalists should promote local government principles and good governance. Ghana News reports:

“Let us all continue to support this laudable programme in order to reduce poverty, alleviate hunger, disease and ignorance in our communities,” she noted.

This is a strong ideal for Ghana where journalism is under attack because of the lack of ethics within the profession. Low pay and lack of freedom of information laws plague journalists in Ghana, as well as other African nations. Add in gutter journalism that pens untruths and you have a difficult situation. Journalism in Ghana has an uphill battle for respectability. Ghana Home Page suggests that opening the channels of communication for the people and the government would help bring credence to journalists in the nation. That and education would help news coverage in Ghana become more reliable and a benefit for the people. Ghanaians need a voice for their grievances such as water, electricity, good roads and schools which media outlets are not providing. Journalists of course would like to make a living writing for the people but with the highest pay going for explosive political stories that attract readership is very attractive.