The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) has awarded Citi FM for excellent coverage of the 2016 general elections.
The country’s leading English-speaking radio station Citi FM (97.3Mhz) was among 13 media houses in Ghana awarded for accuracy devoid of indecent language before, during and post-elections.
The Foundation consulted an eminent team of media professionals, researchers who monitored, coded and analysed indecent expression on the various platforms before giving the award.
Four radio stations in Accra received the awards with the other nine coming from the other regions.
The award was presented to Citi Fm’s Deputy News Director Nana Boakye- Yadom who shared reasons for the station’s successful coverage of the 2016 general election.
“At Citi Fm we realized that the coverage of the election is not what happens on that particular day that’s December 7 so there was a lot of efforts in ensuring that at the core of our strategy for the coverage is more about an informed journalist and all the reporters. What we did months before the coverage is that we trained our reporters and the core newsroom staff, we gave them lots of election related materials to read.”
Meanwhile, media watchers are pushing for the immediate passage of the Broadcasting Bill and the Right to Information Bill. The founder of MFWA, Prof. Kwame Karikari noted that the delay by Parliament in passing these bills is adversely affecting the ethics of the profession.
He also admonished media houses to internally regulate their work.
“We want the Parliament to pass the broadcasting law, we know the bill has been there for many years and we are hoping that the sector minister will introduce the broadcasting bill to parliament, so that bill will be discussed and passed appropriately. But to enhance the media work, we also think that the RTI bill should be passed into law”.
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By: Philip Lartey/citifmonline.com/Ghana