Journalists urged to place premium on professional ethics

The Registrar of the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), Dr Koryoe Anim-Wright has urged journalists to place a premium on the ethics guiding the profession.

That, she said was to deal with the rise of fake news and bridge the gap in right sourcing.

Journalistic ethics are the common values that guide reporters. They lay out both the aspirations and obligations that journalists, editors, and others working in the field should follow to execute their work responsibly.

Dr Anim-Wright was speaking at the University’s Faculty of Information Technology and Communications Studies lecture series themed “Ethics in News Reporting-The Post-Truth Era” in Accra on Wednesday.

She said the “rampancy of fake news worldwide” affected people and the way they behaved for which reason journalists had to up their game to end the menace.

“We need to go back to the basis where we listen to each other, engage with each other, agree to disagree in a manner that is respectful for each other’s point of view,” she added.

The UPSA Registrar stressed that verification was not difficult but people always shared whatever information they had without checking its source.

“We take things without verifying critically examining it and that is the society we find ourselves in right now and we need to back to the basis.”

“We are being animated and manipulated by the social media organisations. We need to take a step back and whatever we get refuse to send until we verify and refuse to create this propaganda out there,” she added.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Media General, MsBeatrice Agyeman Abbey reiterated the need for media practitioners to adhere to the tenets of the professions to accelerate efforts aimed at building a society that thrived on truth.

She stressed that she was not in support of opinionated reports by practitioners as theirs was to reports facts, adding that “you need to be factual, investigate, verify and cross check your facts.”

Ms Abbey said that the country was not “immune to post-truth era”and advised practitioners and media organisationsto engageexperts in certain fields in their interactions for the right information to be conveyed to audiences.

“There is a concern for what we put out there so we need to engage experts to share their knowledge with us and not pose us people who know it all,” she added.

BY ABIGAIL ARTHUR