Regional News of Thursday, 21 August 2003

Source: GNA

Owusu Addo takes campaign to Upper West

Wa, Aug. 20, GNA - Mr Yaw Owusu Addo, one of the two candidates vying for the presidency of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), has said at Wa that if he is elected one of his priorities would be to ensure improvement in the standard of journalism at the 80 FM stations. He said the stations would be made to observe the ethics of the GJA in their operations.

Mr Addo said, as a first step towards the achievement of this objective the GJA under his leadership would ensure that at least the managers and news editors of the private radio stations are professional Journalists.

He said this when he addressed Journalists in Wa as part of his campaign tour of the three Northern Regions. Mr Addo said the FM Stations are staffed mostly with people with no journalistic training and this accounted for the complaints of un-professionalism.

To reverse this trend the GJA would arrange short courses for them at the Ghana Institute of Journalism.

Mr Addo, the Director of Radio of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, called on members of the GJA to flush out the quacks since they often met them at assignments.