Members of the GoNE-SLS at the AGM at The Place Hotel in
Tokeh Village
By Kemo Cham
[First
published on www.politicosl.com]
The print media needs to up its
game by improving on contents, members of the Guild of Newspaper Editors of
Sierra Leone (GoNE-SL) have been urged.
Various
speakers at the first ever Annual General Meeting [AGM] of the Guild last week
lamented the current state of the print media, particularly in terms of poor
content production.
Media is
about content and that’s why the Guild of Editors should encourage its members
to invest in content product, said IMC Commissioner Francis Sowa.
The AGM was
convened last Friday on the theme: ‘Elections and media, focus on the 2018
elections’.
The
leadership of the Guild said it chose the theme in light of growing violence
ahead of general elections expected in less than two years.
The last few
weeks have witnessed a dramatic rise in violent unrests, mainly involving
youths. In some cases it had been fatal.
This has
prompted the Internal Affairs Ministry to institute stringent measures within
the last few hours, including a ‘stop-and-search’ order, in a bid to counter
the rise in violence said to have been fuelled by gangsterism.
The
escalation of violence in the run up to the elections is a pointer to the problems
ahead, said Donald Theo Harding, Chairman of the Guild.
“Sierra
Leoneans and the international community are worried about how to mitigate this
situation,” he added.
Election
period are usually characterized by violence in Sierra Leone and often youths
are used by rogue politicians who are known to use drug and alcohol to
influence their behavior.
GoNE-SL Chairman Donald Theo Harding
Harding said
they felt that the media could play a major role to minimize violence and help the
public make informed choice in the elections.
Invited
guest speakers, from the National Electoral Commission to the Anti Corruption
Commission, to the UNDP, all touched on the role of the media in general and
the print segment in particular in fostering peace and democracy.
The theme of
the AGM is a clear indication that the media is aware that election is a
process rather than event, said Ms Miata French, Commissioner of the National
Elections Commission, who was the keynote speaker. In a marathon speech, she
cautioned against sensational journalism, a practice she said gradually erodes
credibility.
Through the
media public opinion is shaped and at times manipulated, she said, reminding
editors of their responsibility to ensure the right information is provided for
the public to make informed decisions at the polls.
Francis
Sowa, who represented the Media Reform Coordinating Group (MRCG), said the Guild
had a critical role to play in promoting peace and strengthening of democracy,
and that editors must endeavor to prevent chaos by discouraging hate speech and
other malpractices in the profession.
MRCG is
leading a major reform process of the media landscape in the country. It is
doing so through a review of the Mass Communication curriculum review, among
other measures.
Citing the
need to put public interest before political interests, Sowa said leaders
should be held to account but that this must be done with responsibility and
within the confines of the ethics of the profession.
It is
therefore incumbent for the Editors Guild to establish a peer review mechanism
if they are to rectify the current anomalies plaguing the print media, he said.
He added
that in order to ensure independence, media owners also needed to look at
alternative business models.
“The MRCG
believes that it is time to begin thinking about serious business models to run
newspapers so that they become sustainable and viable, thereby not depending on
political sponsors
that will undermine their independence,” he stated.
The GoNE-SL
was first established in 2010 in the northern town of Makeni. It was
established under the chairmanship of Kelvin Lewis, managing Editor of Awoko
newspaper and now President of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists
(SLAJ).
Lewis handed
over the chairmanship of the Guild to his then deputy, Harding, when he decided
to run for the presidency of SLAJ in 2013.
At last
week’s AGM, the first ever of the Guild, delegates resolved, after a brief
deliberation, to postpone a planned election for new executive, so that a
number of issues yet unresolved, like membership status, the organization’s
constitution, could be addressed.
A three-man
committee was appointed to review a draft constitution within two months.
Harding was
authorized by the plenary to select a team of his choice to work as an
executive. They have one year from now to conduct elections.
