CHAPTER 10: SUMMARY, CONCLUSION(S) & RECOMMENDATIONS 199-208
3.2: Media Regulatory Institution(s) and Advocacy / Professional Groups
Advocacy groups are created purposefully to advance a course of action and their establishment may be as a result of Constitutional provision or by the consensus of its members to govern their own daily operations on issues such as freedom to operate without fear of intimidation, professional standards, conduct, funding among others. Ghana‟s media landscape is dominated by a number of advocacy groups and institutions, and regulatory bodies. For the purpose of this work whose focus is on the print media, discussion is confined to only the National Media Commission (NMC), Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), Private Newspaper Publishing Association of Ghana (PRINPAG). Also, light will be cast briefly on some international media bodies such as the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and Declarations.
74 3.2.1 Formation of Press Councils
Historically, the idea of the formation of Press Council was conceived and implemented in the Scandinavian region of Norway and Sweden in 1912 and 1916 respectively (Morgan, 1989:138) and by 1985, there were in existence 22 press councils beyond local scope in eighteen countries which quickly expanded to Canada (Balk, 1989:66). By description and definition,
a [p]ress Council is a panel of journalists and public representatives that exist for two purposes: (1) to receive complaints about the accuracy or fairness of specific news reporting - not opinion - and to render public judgment of their validity and (2) to defend press freedom.
The rationale is that in a democracy, where the press necessarily must remain free of government control, the citizens and institutions granting that freedom deserve-and, given the nature of modern society and media, require-recourses other than courts or political action (Balk, 1989:66).
This move was calculated to be of immense advantage to the smooth co-existence of media and society.
3.2.2 NMC Composition and Formation
Ghana borrowed the concept of press council and promulgated it in her Third Republican Constitution labelled as the Press Commission, under Dr. Hilla Limann‟s presidency in 1979.
However, the entire Constitution was scrapped the following year rendering the Commission dead at birth. Just over a decade on, the Commission was reinstated in the Fourth Republican Constitution in 1992 under the name National Media Commission (NMC). By an Act of Parliament, the NMC was formally established on 7th July 1993, Act 449 in response to the provisions of chapter 12 of the 1992 Constitution (National Media Policy, n.d.). The 18 person membership of the Commission is composed of the following: 1 Ghana National Teacher‟s Association (GNAT) representative, 2 Presidential representatives, 3 Parliamentary representatives, 1 Ghana Bar Association representative, 2 Ghana Journalist Association representatives, 1 Federation of Moslem Councils/Ahmadiyya Movement representative, 1 Media Training Institutions‟ representative, 1 Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association representative, 1 Private Newspaper Publishers Association of Ghana representative, 1 Ghana Association of Writers and Ghana Library Association
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representive, 1 Institute of Public Relations and Advertising Association of Ghana representive, 1 Christian Group (Catholic Secretariat, Christian Council and Ghana Pentecostal Council) representative, 1 Trades Union Congress representative and 1 National Council on Women and Development representative (Media Monitor, 2004:12; AMB, 2011:11). The above composition affirms the position of the media as a „societally representative entity‟.
The mandate (function) of the NMC is to establish and maintain in the mass media, the highest standard of journalistic practice; and to investigate, mediate and settle matters lodged against or by the press or other mass media. It is also to shield the state-owned media from government control and to promote and ensure the freedom and independence of the mass media generally (National Media Policy, nd; Afrimap, 2007:39). Buckley et al. (2008) contended that because media is employed by the government to mobilise the grassroots, it issues licenses to operators who are compassionate to the system. In the administration of all media regulation mechanisms, an autonomous body free from commercial and political influences is created to man licensing. This empowers the body to assess the merits of each application for licence to ensuring that possible discrimination is arrested in the process. As important and challenging as the duties of the commission are, it appears to be besieged with financial problems making them under-resourced in terms of accommodation, budgetary allocation, enhanced remuneration and frequency allocation for the electronic media (Boadu-Ayeboafoh, 2004:18).
3.2.3 Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) and Private Newspaper Publishers Association of Ghana (PRINPAG)
These are two professional media bodies in Ghana. The GJA is the umbrella organisation of all media establishments in the country. It was formed on 15th August, 1949 and was called the African Press Association (APA). Its objective then was to provide the local media practitioners a means to fight colonialism through boycott of the “white press” for a while (GJA, 2012:34). As the military administration of J. J. Rawlings approached its end in the early 1990s, most journalists in the Ghanaian media landscape were coming to terms with the position that media independence is inseparable from social responsibility thus making them devise their own standards. The National Council of the GJA officially adopted its Code of Ethics at Sunyani (27 July 1994). With massive
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backing from civil society, the association staged aggressive campaigns against the Sedition and Criminal Libel Law that led to its abolition in 2001 (GJA, 2011:48). The GJA is now affiliated to some international media organisations such as the West African Journalists Association in Dakar, Federation of African Journalists (FAJ) and the International Federation of Journalists in Brussels, (IFJ) (GJA, 2012:35). The Code of Ethics of the GJA is binding on the state and privately-owned media as well as freelancers. PRINPAG is an association of independent newspapers in Ghana. To be able to guide its members on their day to day professional conduct, PRINPAG introduced ethical codes and constituted an ethics committee who meet at scheduled periods to discuss and resolve queries raised against a said paper or the entire private newspaper industry.