2019 GJA Journalist of the Year, Sampson Lardi Anyenini, has urged the general public to desist from attacking members of the 4th Estate of the Realm.
Delivering an acceptance speech after he was adjudged the 2019 P.A.V Ansah Journalist of the Year at the 25th GJA Awards held Saturday, October 25, 2020, the host of Newsfile on Joy News, bemoaned the increasing attacks on journalists and appealed to the general public to cooperate with the media in the execution of their constitutional mandate.
Making reference to rulings by the country’s law courts, Mr. Anyenini warned the public to desist from attacking media personnel since it is against the laws of the country. He advised people to rather seek legal redress at the appropriate quarters if they believe a journalist is engaged in any form of misconduct.
“Cooperate with journalists and don’t attack them.”
“Too many journalists have been attacked in this country and I have had the privilege of representing some of them. On three different occasions, our courts have said that you [members of the general public] have no right to lay your hand on a journalist. If you think a journalist has done something wrong, if they are conducting themselves criminally, do what is done in a democracy, cause their arrest,” he said.
The celebrated legal practitioner cum journalist also urged his colleagues in the media to be bold and firm in carrying out their duties especially in the run-up to the 2020 General Elections.
“During the elections, when for some reason someone asks you to bring your recorder for it to be destroyed, do not give it to them. Let them know that if you are in the wrong, then they should report you to the police,” he advised.
In recent times, there have numerous threats and/ attacks on journalists in the country. This has culminated into the country continuously dropping in the Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders.
Ghana was ranked 27 in 2019, a drop of four places from its 2018 ranking. The country’s position on the World Press Freedom Index worsened in 2020 when it dropped three places ranking 30. The country’s 2020 drop in the press freedom ranking was mainly due to threats on journalists and the killing of investigative journalist, Ahmed Suale of Tiger Eye PI.
Ahmed Suale was shot dead in January, 2019 in Madina, a suburb of Accra after investigations by him and Tiger Eye, an investigative company revealed acts of corruption in the Ghana Football Association (GFA) which led to the head of the football association suffering severe sanctions both locally and internationally.
The 2020 Press Freedom Index report stated that though investigation was opened into the murder of the investigative journalist, no arrest was made which it said led to the halting of the case.
It further started that “A ruling party parliamentarian who had been named in the documentary publicly threatened one of the journalists without ever being arrested or questioned.”
Another investigative journalist, Manasseh Azure Awuni was threatened by supposed members of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) after his investigative piece revealed the use of a state facility to train party’s militias.
