Why the Media has failed Ghanaians on the Genetically Modified Foods debates

The raging debate over whether Ghana should accept Genetically Modified Foods (GM Foods) into the country’s food chain continues unabated. Since the passage of the Biosafety Act 2011, government has made clear its unwavering commitment to introduce them once all required regulatory provisions are fulfilled. Protests by Civil Society Groups like Food Sovereignty Ghana demanding a moratorium on GM Food production have fallen on deaf ears, and now they’ve matched their talk with action by suing government.

The debate has been contentious, and clouded with a lot of emotions and anti imperialism talk, which in my view, has not helped steer the conversation in the right course to allow for Ghanaians to make informed decisions on whether to accept or reject the technology.

On Thursday 4th June 2015, I was invited to speak to a group of farmers, parliamentarians and other stakeholders in the agricultural sector on the media’s perspective on the GM Food debate at forum organised by agric firm, Crop Life Ghana. I decided to summarize a few of the things I said for sharing in this piece.

Let’s be blunt about it. In the words of American activist, Malcom X, “the media is the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent. Because they control the masses.” That appears to be what the anti GM Food campaigners have succeeded in using the media to do in the GM Food debate. The media has succeeded in painting GM Foods as a caricature that is chasing Ghanaians to consume them, when in fact humans should rather be eating GM Foods. I quoted a research by J. N. Buah on the Perception of GM Foods in Ghana, in which 80 percent of ordinary Ghanaians who responded to a survey, and 90% of government workers at the ministries indicated their total rejection of GM foods.

Second point, Ghanaians rely a lot on the media for education and information, and the issue of GM Foods which is a new technology being introduced into the country is no exception. Here as well, I quoted details of a research by Hudu Zakaria, Hamza Adam, and Afishata Mohammed Abujaja on the Knowledge and Perception of Farmers towards Genetically Modified Crops to make my point. The research revealed that 61.7% of farmers who were surveyed got their messages on GM Foods from the mass media, mainly radio and television. The rest got the information through Agric Extension Agents and fellow farmers.

I then drew a connection between the two. The populace relies on the media as the main source of their information on GM Foods. The majority of the populace has rejected GM Foods. So, would it be fair to say the media has been responsible for influencing the populace to reject GM Foods? Or, the people have just made up their minds they don’t want it and the media is just towing that line. I may be wrong, but my view is that, the earlier is true. The media has succeeded in whipping up sentiments against GM Foods resulting in the massive rejection. I gave the following reasons to back my accusation against the media.

First, I think media coverage has been largely prejudiced against GM Foods, and too many media practitioners who discuss the topic have shown enormous open bias against GM Foods, especially on radio. I have heard media practitioners state unequivocally while anchoring news on local language radio stations they would use all the power and resources available to them to resist the introduction of GM foods into the country. But we all know the tenants of the profession discourage media practitioners from openly taking positions on debates like this and championing those positions. There appears to be a confusion of facts and opinions by media persons in discussing the issue of GM Foods.

Secondly, there has been too much sensationalism in the media when it comes to discussions on GM foods, particularly with the print and online. All sorts of wrongful, scary, ‘out of context’ images have been used to depict GM Foods including tomatoes being injected with syringes, and corns with eyes among others. It just doesn’t add up.

Thirdly, as indicated, this is a new technology that became pronounced only about 30 years ago, and is now reaching our shores. A large number of media practitioners including me like many other Ghanaians, lack a clear understanding of the science of GM Food production. This is showing in the work we do, and it is not cool. I have heard an Akan news caster say on radio that Genetically Modified Foods are foods which have been injected with DDT. How worse can it get? Most of us have not self educated ourselves about the technology, but we tend to mount the ‘wisdom high ground’ to educate others. Fourthly, there has been too much broadcasting and re - publication of propaganda inspired foreign, anti GM materials on local media without question, without cross checking, and without a fair opportunity to those on the other side of the debate to clarify or rebut. A typical examples was the research work published by French Professor, Eric Seralini in an American Journal which claimed GM foods had caused tumours in rats, but was later redacted by the journal’s editors for inaccurate procedures in arriving at the conclusion. I’m sure this is a problem any Ghanaian academic who had read the research could have pointed out to the media but we were just not interested. Well, as my colleague Kofi Adu Dumfe pointed out at the forum, sometimes, the problem is with our scientists. They are always in their shelves and hardly want to open up to the media, when those pushing the anti GM Food campaign are always out there, bombarding the media with information left, right, center. But the media has a responsibility to provide balance and we cannot run away from that. Additionally, I don’t know if you have observed this too, but the media always enjoy being in antagonism with government. We appear to always fancy being at logger heads with state officials, disagreeing and fighting them. In the case of GM Foods, the government has vouched for the technology. The media and its practitioners appear to think the best way to shape the GM Food debate is to take the other side of the coin, so we battle it out with them. Thus inspiring an anti GM posturing by the media.

So, I am convinced from the above that the media is to blame for the heightened media rejection of GM Foods in Ghana. When it comes to media coverage of GM Foods, every single provision in the Ghana Journalist Association’s code of conduct encouraging fair reportage has been breached. Coverage has been largely unbalanced and non objective.

As a journalist, I am equally guilty of all the above, and I am not ashamed to say so. I would shy away from professing suggestions on how we should deal with these problems, but I think it’s about time media practitioners detach themselves and their emotions from the GM Food debate. There is the need for increased self education and training by experts on the technology for the media, and the media needs to return to the core principles of journalistic practice in discussing issues of GM Foods.

May God bless us all.

By Joseph Opoku Gakpo

www.josephopokugakpo.wordpress.com