Monday, 20 August 2007
THE Most Rev.Charles Palmer-Buckle, Metropolitan Catholic Archbishop of Accra, on Saturday prescribed a new set of duties for the Ghanaian media: "to form, in-form and trans-form" the Ghanaian Society.Addressing the 12th Ghana Journalists Awards Night in Accra on the theme: "Ghana @ 50: Safeguarding democracy through the media", he urged the media to go beyond their conventional role of informing, educating and entertaining in consonance with contemporary challenges and future trends.
"The duty of the media today is to form, in-form, and trans-form the individual as well as the Ghanaian society. It is the duty of the media in my opinion to aid all other state, public and private institutions to form, inform and transform our human capital into Ghana, a nation of Freedom and Justice," he said.
He explained that, although the duty of the media is to inform, educate and entertain, a casual look at the media landscape “make you question the veracity of this truism.”
He wondered whether the Ghanaian media is really educating, informing and entertaining its readers, listeners or viewers, adding that if so, “good or bad news?
Archbishop Palmer-Buckle therefore urged the media to aid all other institutions to form, inform and transform the human capital of the country.
He advised the media to “help form especially our children and youth, not to deform them”, adding whatever is put out to the public should “help form, mould the character and personality of the child, the student and the young ones”
“It is our responsibility to make sure that whatever goes for media consumption is wholesome and will give strength of character to our children, our youth and to society as a whole”
As Ghana ends its 50th anniversary, he said the media should help transform the image of the country and the image the Ghanaian has for his fellow Ghanaian.
“It is quite painful to see how Ghanaians seem to have rather very little self-worth and confidence, and turn to run everything Ghanaian down for anything foreign,” he pointed out
Archbishop Palmer Buckle tasked the country’s media to bring about a true democracy that engenders the total well-being of all Ghanaians, especially the oppressed and marginalised.
He said: “By your choice of vocation or profession in the media, God puts into your grasp a very powerful tool, which is the word,” to bring development to the people.
He urged media practitioners never to take lightly their onerous responsibility, saying “you wield an instrument that is very powerful, creative, active and even dangerously deadly.”
Rev.Palmer-Buckle, whose address was mainly based on the Biblical perspective, asked journalists in the country to see themselves as “prophets”, saying “you are indeed like the prophets of the old, who gave voice to God so that his word could reach those to whom it was destined.”
He underscored the need for journalists to reflect on their profession and carry the good news to liberate the oppressed, set captives free, as well as bring hope to the poor.
As the fourth estate of the realm, he said, media practitioners are expected to be the conscience of the nation, the watchman that the Lord God has placed on the watchover of Ghana to watch over the citizens of the nation.
“The media practitioner in Ghana today must be a person who is guided by nobility and the quest for virtue, particularly, by the supreme good of the people to whom he or she has been sent,” he advised.
The media, he indicated, has the responsibility to ensure that whatever goes out for public consumption is wholesome and criticised the media for the prominence it has given to vice and crime in the country recently, saying “evil is very loud, but good, because it is normal and natural, it makes no news, no headlines”
“Sometimes, when I read some of the banner headlines of our dailies, like some two months ago, when it was all murder, cocaine, accidents, armed robbery, violence among chieftaincy factions,etc,I just asked myself, is it that really good image projection for the nation,? he said.
He urged journalists “not to teach vice inadvertently to our children and youth”, pointing out that too many bad news headlines about Ghana lead to discouraging fellow citizens, especially the young ones.
Archbishop Palmer-Buckle also asked the media to be circumspect with sensationalism and rather be more concerned about the “pusillanimous” spirits in society.
“It is our duty to weigh the ultimate result and impact of our publications vis-à-vis the greater good of the persons, the institutions and the nation at large in deciding what to inform the public with in our media presentations,” he said
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