JOURNALISTS URGED TO GO BEYOND BASICS OF REPORTING (PAGE 26, DEC 4)

The Associate Dean of the African University College of Communication, Mr Ato Amoaning Annan, has called on journalists to go beyond the basics of reporting and undertake investigations and ascertain the validity of facts about events and issues.
“It takes going beyond an event to bring to light human rights abuses. Journalists, therefore, need an extra eye to identify human rights violations and report on them,” he said.
According to him, reporting on issues would ensure that many Ghanaians were better informed about their rights and the rights of others.
Speaking at a day’s seminar for media practitioners in the Upper East Region on Human Rights reporting, Mr Annan, who is also in charge of Diploma Programmes and Student Affairs at AUCC, said the approach required media practitioners to go into detail and be thorough and explanatory.
He explained that human rights reporting aimed at determining and discovering the wrongs of human actions.
He added that apart from exposing human rights issues to the public it also provided the rationale for correction.
A Legal Officer at the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Mr Samuel Bosompem, noted that the commission alone could not tackle all issues on human rights and appealed to the media to collaborate with it to promote the rights, and dignity of the people.
He said the commission handled over 12,000 cases annually, 70 per cent which were concluded and the rest rolled over to the following year. He said the numbers could reduce if journalists redirected their focus and talked about human rights issues.
The Upper East Regional Director of CHRAJ, Mr Kenneth Adabayeri, appealed to the media not to hesitate to approach the commission in the region whenever there was the need to get information or clarification on any issue concerning human rights abuses.
He said journalists, by their training and calling, were human rights defenders.
“We at the commission cannot work in isolation. We need your collaboration to sensitise the public and enhance the frontiers of good governance and democracy,” he said.