As per the 2023 poll conducted by the University of Ghana’s School of Communications, around 40% of journalists had experienced attacks throughout the course of their work.
Additionally, 70% of practitioners said they knew coworkers who had been attacked.
On February 13, Dr. Abena Animwaa Yeboah-Banin, a senior lecturer at the Communications School, told JoyNews that this has made journalists fearful of their jobs.
Three quarters of the sampled individuals at least had an attack while working in their field. Even more significantly, almost 70% of those surveyed stated they knew of coworkers who had been attacked in the course of their employment.
According to Dr. Yeboah-Banin, this is concerning because there has been no action taken to stop the situation despite the rate of attacks on journalists continuing to double.
Her remarks come after politicians and their allies have attacked journalists recently.
While covering the NPP’s parliamentary primaries, Mohammed Aminu Alabira, the Northern regional correspondent for Citi FM, allegedly came under attack from Farouk Aliu Mahama, the Member of Parliament for the Yendi Constituency.
Additionally, those allegedly supporting Mavis Hawa Koomson, the MP for the Awutu Senya East Constituency, are accused of assaulting a journalist in the Central area.
The Ghana Journalists Association then demanded that the lawmakers be excluded from the media.
Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, the minister of information, supported these requests and asked the GJA to put more pressure on the Ghana Police Service and the judiciary to deal with cases of attacks on journalists throughout the nation.
