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31.03.2003 General News

Media Loses Interest In NRC

31.03.2003 LISTEN
By Graphic

A research report on the coverage of the sittings of the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) and the reconciliation process has revealed that reportage of the commission's work is dwindling.

Consequently, it has been recommended that media houses should endeavour to intensify their coverage of the commission's proceedings as their contribution towards the reconciliation process.

This was contained in an executive summary of the report covering February, made available to the press at a second stakeholders' meeting organised by the National Media Commission (NMC) in Accra.

The monthly report, which was conducted by Media Watch, a media consultancy outfit is an NMC media monitoring project funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

It reiterated the call on media practitioners covering and commenting on the sittings of the commission to adhere to the fundamental principles of journalism.

The report said some headlines are sensational and unreflective of facts, and cautioned that with the passage of time, there is the likelihood that there will be more controversial and sensitive stories from the public hearing.

It added that in this respect, it behoves the media to exercise a high sense of circumspection in order to separate-facts from opinion, cross-check facts, spelling and pronunciation of names, while non-news programme hosts should also be guided by the “Spirit of Akosombo”, guidelines for reporting on the commission.

It commended Uniiq FM and GTV for devoting much airtime for radio and television and noted that GTV is the only television station that continues to telecast live the NRC's sittings, adding that in a total percentage rate, GTV had 92 per cent while TV3 and Metro TV had 6.1 and 2.2 per cent respectively.

In the print sector, the Evening News emerged as the newspaper that allotted the largest amount of space — 17.9 per cent, followed by the Ghanaian Times and the Daily Graphic with (5.3 per cent and 14.8 per cent respectively among 15 newspapers covered, with the Pioneer devoted the least coverage of 0.4 per cent.

On radio coverage by seven stations, the state owned media allocated a fifth of their airtime to the reconciliation process, Uniiq FM 27.7 per cent and Radio II 27.2 per cent with Peace FM allocating 15.6 per cent while Radio Universe apportioned the least airtime of 5.1 per cent to the process.

Participants expressed concern about the lack of interest shown by editors and executives of media houses in the meetings of the NMC on matters concerning the NRC

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