Yaw Boadu Ayeboafoh, the Chairman of the National Media Commission (NMC), disapproves of the Ghana Journalists Association’s (GJA) decision to place individuals on a blacklist for allegedly assaulting journalists while they were performing their official duties.
According to him, the GJA’s call for a boycott or blackout would not serve the public interest or be beneficial.
In his remarks, Mr. Boadu-Ayeboafoh discussed the GJA’s recent decision to place two New Patriotic Party MPs Mavis Hawa Koomson of Awutu Senya East and Farouk Aliu Mahama of Yendi on a blacklist due to their alleged attacks on journalists during the party’s recent parliamentary primaries.
He was giving the keynote lecture at a one-day training program on “Promoting Peaceful Journalistic Media Platforms Ahead of Elections 2024” for journalists from the Ashanti, Bono, Ahafo, and Bono East regions, which was organized by the GJA with assistance from the US Embassy in Accra.
He claimed that the GJA’s “equally unilateral decision of calling for a boycott or blackout on such people” was the result of the “recent purile, vicious and violent attack on journalists for exercising their public obligation of informing our people,” which he denounced.
Even if the GJA’s strategy was well-liked, he claimed that “it is dysfunctional.” “Although I still believe that violent attacks on journalists are depressing, I don’t think that a unilateral decision to boycott or go dark is the best course of action. With impunity, we cannot approach it,” he declared.
