NGOs, journalists urged to cultivate a symbiotic relationship

Accra, Feb. 11, GNA - Ms. Trudy Kernighan, Canadian High Commissioner in Ghana, on Friday stressed the need for a mutually beneficial relationship between Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and journalists in order to achieve their respective goals.

Ms Kernighan made the call at a day's workshop for journalists and N= GOs on how to better pitch stories to the press and how journalists can use NGO= s for story ideas and sources.

It was organised by Journalists for Human Rights (JHR) and the Canadia= n High Commission on the theme 93Bridging the Gap".

She stated that the media was very powerful and was the most important ally of NGOs and vice versa and thus should cultivate a symbiotic relationship with each other.

"NGOs work directly with the communities while the media disseminate information to the community and relevant policymakers about what happens i= n the society. Journalists, in order to write accurately, can get statistics and relevant information from the NGOS."

Ms Jenny Vaughan, overseas coordinator of JHR, said the purpose of the workshop was to ensure that journalists and NGOs understood each other and worked harmoniously together by equipping NGOs to give better stories to th= e press and journalists, to go beyond using what is written in press releases to researching and doing hard-hitting in-depth stories.

Ms Adisa Lansah, a communications specialist with Plan Ghana, said NGO= s could be useful to journalists as sources of relevant information on specific issues, could provide context to a story, staff can serve as resource persons and panellists and could also help connect them to people who had a better understanding of the subject of the story.

"NGOs can be a source of story ideas. We do not want you to just rep= ort on an event but to have a feel of what happens on the ground and to write about it.

Ms Lansah added that the media can also act as pressure groups to brin= g issues such as corruption and human rights abuses to the knowledge of government and educate their audience on them. They can get this informatio= n from research done by NGOs.

She cited the lack of proper networking and understanding of each other's work, NGOs not respecting journalists' time and journalists demanding money for publishing stories among others, as reasons for the gap between both parties and urged them to see the relationship as a partnership.

Ms Lansah also called on NGOs to put their research findings in contex= t so that journalists working on them could better understand them.

Participants at the workshop brainstormed on how both parties could stay connected, how to write a perfect press release, writing award-winning articles from press releases and how to plan media campaigns.