IT has been echoed over and over that freedom of the press, like all liberties, has its limits, for the simple reason that if abused, it can be like a lethal weapon.
The French philosopher, Voltaire, put it even more succinctly when he wrote, “We owe respect to the living; to the dead, we owe only truth.”
It is for this reason that the Daily Graphic welcomes Vice-President John Dramani Mahama’s admonition to the media to balance freedom with responsibility and avoid injuring other people’s reputation for no just cause when he launched the 60th anniversary of the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL) in Accra last Wednesday.
Indeed, given some serious infractions the nation has witnessed on the media landscape in the not-too-distant past, and even in recent times, we think the timing of the caution is most appropriate.
Much as the Constitution guarantees the freedom and independence of the media and outlaws censorship, we are enjoined to exercise this freedom with responsibility. This means that the media must be accurate, balanced and fair in their reportage.
In a fledgling democracy such as ours, the media have an even greater responsibility to uphold press freedom, promote responsible journalism and journalistic excellence and engage different sectors of society in the growth process.
But, as a people and a nation, can we honestly say we are satisfied with the happenings on our media front? Look at the danger posed by phone-in programmes on which people view every issue from a political standpoint and use intemperate language at will. Is that what media freedom is about?
The phone-ins empower people to speak their minds on issues but if the hosts do not control the excesses, people’s views will inflame passions and further polarise society.
The sad case of our brothers and sisters in Rwanda is a classic example to remind us that we are at risk all the time, that there is a very thin line between freedom and irresponsibility and that we need to exercise the greatest restraint anytime we pick our pens or computers to write or sit behind the microphone to host a programme.
Perhaps it is important at this stage to remind ourselves of the verdict of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) on the ‘Media Trial’ of executives from RTLM and Kangura, the extremist private radio station and newspaper, respectively, of the Hutu people.
Said the ICTR, “The newspaper and the radio explicitly and repeatedly, in fact, relentlessly, targeted the Tutsi population for destruction. Demonising the Tutsi as having inherently evil qualities, equating the ethnic group with ‘the enemy’ and portraying its women as seductive enemy agents, the media called for the extermination of the Tutsi ethnic group as a response to the political threat that they associated Tutsi ethnicity. The killings began almost immediately in Kigali.”
The whole world was abhorred by the genocide that followed and it was not surprising that on one occasion the former UN boss, Kofi Annan, bluntly said, “The media was used in Rwanda to spread hatred, to dehumanise people and even to guide genocidaires toward their victims.... I hope that all of us, as diplomats, journalists, government officials or concerned citizens, will act promptly and effectively, each within our sphere of influence, to halt genocide wherever it occurs — or better still, to make sure there is no next time.”
That is the wish of the Daily Graphic, too, and, indeed, all true lovers of freedom, democracy and the rule of law. Indeed, all of us — whether media professionals, the publics served by the media, public officials, the private sector, civil society groups, readers, viewers and listeners — have one binding obligation — to strengthen and protect the press as a pillar of democracy.
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