Deputy Chairperson of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) Kathleen Addy

Media practitioners have been urged to be more focused on issues that affect the environment.

Deputy Chairperson of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Kathleen Addy, who made the call, wants the media to extend their scope beyond sensationalism and politics and cover issues that affect the environment.

Ms Addy said this at a media advocacy workshop at Fumesua in the Ejisu Municipality of the Ashanti Region on Thursday, 3 September 2020.

It was held on the theme: “Effective public education on environmental governance and amendment of relevant constitutional provisions in relation to anti-corruption laws: The role of the media.”

The Deputy NCCE Chairperson bemoaned the lack of diversity in the practice of journalism across the country.

She stated: “Indeed, one of the issues we should discuss today, is the unfortunate death of diversity or specialisation in the practice of journalism. Even as we speak, let’s ask ourselves how many newsrooms in Ghana today can boast of a vibrant environment desk or a journalist specialising in environmental governance?

“These are not strange things you know, they’re things that actually exist in other places. Yet we know that there are burning issues in this sector, from galamsey to deforestation and rapidly emerging conflict jungles that now characterise our major cities.”

She further called for the use of the new social media trend known as ‘Kumerica’ to revive the city, which was once noted as the Garden City.

“In fact, a new social media trend called Kumerica should task us to go beyond the jokes to actually bring back the garden city that Kumasi is supposed to be.”

Ms Addy also called for further talks on strategies that will enable the media across the country to expand its scope.

 “Mostly, media practitioners make pragmatic economic arguments to explain the way they work, meaning that a lot of media houses will say that there is no income generation that comes from pursuing stories of the environment.

“So the investment you make in environmental reporting, you don’t get payback for it, and we all know that media houses are businesses.  They need income to survive and so for me, the challenge is to talk about and come up with a strategy, how do media houses expand their scope beyond sensationalism and politics to cover real issues that affect all of us, real issues that have implications for what our future will look like. Real issues that have an impact on the kind of legacy we’ll leave for our descendants. So, let’s go beyond sensationalism,” she added.  

By Media1

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