WELL SAID, CJ (OCTOBER 27, 2008)

THE Chief Justice, Mrs Justice Georgina Theodora Wood, at the weekend called on the media to play their role in ensuring credible elections in December.
For her, the need for journalists to live up to their role as neutral referees was crucial and a precondition for successful polls.
So important is the media’s role that the Chief Justice described as “awesome” their task of educating the electorate to help them to make wise political decisions and not to prejudge the issues.
Her call to practitioners of the noble profession, which has become known as the Fourth Estate of the Realm, at a dinner packed with journalists, media practitioners and corporate organisations to celebrate excellence in journalism is, indeed, very welcome.
Her appeal to the media comes at a time when the electioneering has gathered steam, with pockets of election- related violence already being reported in some areas of the country.
Rightly so, journalists have a crucial role in shaping opinions and empowering the voting public with information with which to make informed decisions.
The fourth President of the United States, James Madison, an ardent promoter of free press and free society, once noted that “knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives”.
The ancient historian, William Bernbach, also noted that “all of us who professionally use the mass media are the shapers of society. We can vulgarise that society. We can brutalise it. Or we can help lift it onto a higher level”.
The freedom that has been accorded the media needs to be used responsibly, as there is no absolute freedom. Everybody in society identifies with the media in one way or another and anything the media churn out is likely to make an impact, either negatively or positively, on different segments of society.
It is for this reason that the Daily Graphic endorses the Chief Justice’s call on the media to play a leading and responsible role in the run up to, during and after the December polls.
There is no better time than now for the media to show their readiness to promote peace, reconciliation and development and there is yet no better journalism than development journalism in which even the bleakest incidents, events and behaviours are looked at and shaped from a development perspective.
This will mean that every act of the media will be guided by the overriding interest of promoting the cause of the larger society, a fair balance of exercising responsibility in freedom.
The Uruguayan journalist, Eduardo Galeano, describes the media as something that symbolises the community’s favourite way of dreaming, living, dancing, playing or loving, and if we may add, “of voting”.
It is only proper for the media to aspire to promote national peace and stability through the use of temperate and refined language.
The Daily Graphic also commends the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) for using the awards ceremony platform to drum support for efforts by other organisations to sensitise the electorate to the need for free and fair polls.
With a few weeks to the highly anticipated polls on December 7, all Ghanaians are encouraged to play their roles as responsible citizens, and in this national assignment the media cannot afford to distort the peace with irresponsible reportage.
We believe members of the media fraternity are ready to join peace-loving Ghanaians to work towards successful elections that will anchor Ghana as a model democratic state in Africa.