MINISTER of Information, Alhaji Mustapha Ahmed, has launched the 24 points revised Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) Code of Ethics for practising journalists in Accra.
The launch brought together some notable faces in the industry including some of the contestants vying for positions in the upcoming GJA general elections.
Addressing the gathering, the information minister explained that ethics is important to every society.
“Any society that does not have ethics is not worth being a society, because its ethics differentiates human race from that of the animal race. It is our ethics that gives us a sense of organisation, sense of order and sense of our humanness,” Alhaji Ahmed noted.
He therefore called on the members of the inky fraternity to abide by the revised code of ethics which “distinguishes us as journalist from the rest of other professions”.
Alhaji Mustapha however, advised journalists to take their profession seriously.
“Ghanaian journalists should not allow themselves as just reporting the happenings in the society but should be seen as people with authority in their field of work”, he added.
Earlier in his welcome address, the President of GJA, Mr Affail Monney said “plurality of batakari makes it difficult to tell the difference between a genuine and fake one”.
Contextually he explained that, the proliferation of media outlets and practitioners pose a challenge to the ordinary media consumer to distinguish between a professional and someone who masquerades as such.
“But by their fruits we shall know them”, he said.
According to the GJA President, the new Code has come at the right time to help cure the skyrocketing disease of ethical travesty across the media spectrum.
He further explained that in reality the respect for the basic principles which underpin “our profession is what separates a serious journalist from a fake one”.
He however noted that, producing a code is one thing while implementing its content is another.
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