Media training is being done by independent group of industry stakeholders – KON

Information Minister, Kojo Oppong, has said the media capacity training for journalists is being provided by independent group of industry stakeholders.

The National Media Commission (NMC), Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association (GIBA), Private Newspaper Publishers Association (PRINPAG), Institute of Professional Studies (IPS), Communication Educators, Association of Ghana Civil Society Groups in Media and selected leading journalists and media houses worked together to set up an independent working group that is collaborating to enhance the capacity of Ghanaian journalists to ensure they deliver on their mandate, he said.

“The needs assessment , curriculum development , administration of training is all being done by this independent group of industry stakeholders.

“Our commitment as a government is to provide scholarship for 250 beneficiaries who will be selected by the committee to participate in the programme for the year 2022,” the Ofoase Ayirebi lawmaker said in series of tweets.

The decision by the government of Ghana to organize capacity enhancement programme for journalists was questioned by some analysts.

Deputy National Youth Oragnsier of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Edem Agbana who raised issues against the government being the organizer of this capacity enhancement programme, indicated that this has the propensity of compromising the journalists who are supposed to be neutral.

He believed that the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) should have been the organizers of such an event, not the government.

He was contributing to a discussion on the New Day show with Johnnie Hughes on TV3 Tuesday January 11 regarding the National Media Capacity Enhancement programme, a programme designed by the government through the Ministry of Information to provide training for some 250 journalists annually across the country.

The government should not be the organizer of this event, Agbana said.

He further asked the GJA to take up the issue of welfare of journalists seriously.

“The Ghana Journalists Association must sit-up on the issues of welfare of journalists. We need to have a whole conversation about the welfare of journalists,” he said.

Communications Director of the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO), George Ayisi, however believed that there was nothing wrong with the government organizing the programme.

“The government is supporting all institutions to thrive and the media is part so that is ok. That cannot take people from their jobs,” he said.

He however agreed with Agbana on the point that another body could have organised this programme.

“It would have been ideal if GJA had done it or the National Media Commission (NMC),” he said.