Push state actors to provide information – Lecturer urges media

Lecturer at the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ), Mr. Zakaria Tanko Musa has urged the media to push for information at state institutions and outfits.

According to the lecturer, with the passage of the Right to Information (RTI) law journalists have every right to demand every information they may need.

This information, he noted may aid the public to know how these state outfits function or operate.

Addressing the media in Kumasi at a forum put together by the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Mr. Zakaria said the RTI law empowers every journalist to ask or seek for information they may need from public outfits so that they can properly educate and inform the public on same.

”It is now your right to demand every information that will aid you in your profession so that you can also adequately and appropriately educate and pass knowledge to the public”, the lecturer posited.

CONFIDENCE:

Mr. Zakaria, a lawyer in addition to his teaching profession tasked the media to go for information from the right sources at the public outfits they may choose to visit.

This, he noted will enable them to adequately plot their stories from informed positions.

Knowing and having the right information, the GIJ lecturer mentioned will enable journalists to write or report confidently about the subject they may be dwelling on.

He stressed that the media will be spared the agony of twisting facts when they have all the right information from outfits they may be writing about or institutions they may be investigating.

RESPONSES:

Hafiz Tijani, a journalist with Citi FM told the Ghanaian Observer newspaper that the RTI will empower the media in its work.

He noted that nothing is as good as having the right and accurate information to write or report on.

Oheneba Nana Asiedu, morning show host at Fox 97.9 FM in Kumasi expressed delight at the opportunity to demand information from public outfits.

He said these state and public institutions have for long denied the media access to their operations and noted that even when one had information about a wrong act being done at these places the media were blocked from having the full facts.