Mr. Yaw Opoku, the Sunyani Municipal Electoral Officer, said the performance of the national wire service in terms of the accuracy, objectivity and fairness of its electoral reportage had been commendable.
He was addressing a two-day training workshop held for reporters and stringers of the Agency from across five regions – Brong-Ahafo, Ashanti, Northern, Upper East and Upper West in Abesim, near Sunyani.
It is part of the effort to build their capacity for effective coverage of the coming presidential and parliamentary polls.
The workshop comes under the “GNA Tracks Election 2016 Project”, funded by Ghana Oil Company Limited (GOIL), a state-owned oil company and CIMG 2015 Petroleum Company of the year.
The project seeks to sensitize the electorate on the various issues raised by political parties, the elections management body and other governance institutions.
It further aims at ensuring gender and social inclusion in national politics and to provide voice for the youth, vulnerable groups, opinion leaders and the broader spectrum of society, and to contribute to achieving peaceful polls.
Another objective of the project is to create a platform to dissect the manifestoes of all political parties and provide in-depth analysis of each thematic area to the electorate to enable them make informed judgments and choices.
Mr. Opoku, who has worked with the constitutional body charged with the conduct of elections for over two decades, said the GNA had been outstanding – upholding high journalistic standards.
He took the participants through the Constitutional Instrument (CI) 94, and reminded the media that it had vital role to play to ensure free, fair and credible election on the December 07.
He underlined the need for journalists to be ethical and to exercise good professional judgment.
Mr. Opoku told them that “you are sent to the polling stations to observe and not to monitor the elections”, and asked that they avoided unfair and bias reporting, that had the potential to plunge the nation into turmoil.
Alhaji Mohammed Nurudeen Issahaq, acting General Manager of the GNA, spoke of the need to maintain the credibility that agency had built for itself over the decades.
GNA
