NMC to regulate electronic media content
The National Media Commission (NMC) has decided to regulate the content of the electronic media ahead of the 2016 general elections in Ghana.
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This, according to the commission was in line with the Legislative Instrument (LI) 221.
The Chairman of the NMC, Mr Kwasi Gyan-Apenteng made this known at the inauguration of the Ashanti region seven-member Media Advisory Committee in Kumasi on Monday.
He said the move was not to apply any punitive measure to those who flout the law but to make each media house self-regulatory so as to have a sanitized system.
The advisory committee headed by the former Chairman of the Commission, Mr Paul Adu-Gyamfi, is to serve as a back up to the monitoring of the media scene in the Ashanti region.
Other members of the committee are Prof. Tsiri Agbenyegah, Provost of the College of Health Sciences of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Madam Felicia Sraha, a retired educationist, Mr I. K. Gyasi, also a retired educationist, Mr Emmanuel Yeboah, the immediate past headmaster of Prempeh College, Madam Adwoa Amankwah, a communications lecturer and Mr Jonathan Frimpong, of the Ashanti regional office of the NMC.
Mr Gyan-Apenteng, said the operationalisation of the L.I. 221 was to make the NMC alive to its responsibility more so when Ghana was about to go digital next year.
He said the migration to digital was likely to result in all kinds of foreign content flooding the country and therefore there was the need to regulate and keep the standard high.
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The commission is also to set up an ombudsman system for the Ghanaian media by training one person in each media house to check facts and make necessary correction on time.
Mr Adu-Gyamfi said the media needed to lead the crusade of championing the country’s aspirations.
He said as the 2016 elections drew closer the relevance of the media has become even more pronounced and there was the need for all to be on guard.
The seven-member committee was inaugurated by His Lordship Justice Samuel Obeng Diawo, a High Court judge.