The Chairman of the National Media Commission (NMC), Mr Kabral Blay-Amihere, has bemoaned the attack on journalists in the performance of their duties.
He said with the “sacred” duty performed by the media, nobody dared put the law into their own hands by visiting mayhem on media practitioners and destroying their professional gadgets.
Mr Blay-Amihere was speaking with the Daily Graphic after the opening of a three-day media and security agencies collaboration programme in Kumasi.
His condemnation comes in the wake of recent attacks on media practitioners in Tamale in the Northern Region, where a group of young men vandalised the premises of a local radio station, Justice FM, and attacked a photo-journalist in Tamale.
A reporter and a cameraman with TV Africa in Tamale were also attacked while performing their duties.
Mr Blay-Amihere, who addressed a number of media men, military and police personnel at the Prempeh Assembly Hall, commended the police for their timely intervention in the attack on the Tamale radio station.
He said the NMC had always promoted responsible journalism and called for circumspection in media coverage.
He appealed to the three institutions – the media, the military and the police – to be guided by the provisions of the 1992 Constitution and work together.
He said Articles 162 and 163 enjoined the media to work to defend the Constitution, hence the need to join forces with the military and police for national development.
He said though the media had the traditional role to inform the public, it must exercise its constitutional freedoms with great responsibility.
Speaking on the theme: “Ghana Armed Forces, Ghana Police Service and Media in Defence of our Beloved Country, Ghana”, he encouraged the media to work closely with the military and the police for the defence of all.
He said, for example, that the media in the United States (US) collaborated with the military to ensure that the country’s security would not be undermined after the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Centre (WTC), in which nearly 3,000 people lost their lives, an attack which the US believes was masterminded by Osama bin Laden and his Taliban forces.
Mr Blay-Amihere said a continuous peaceful future of the country lay in the hands of the military and that as agents of development, the military needed to partner the media, the police and other security agencies.
He advised military personnel to be diligent in their dealings with civilians and see members of the media as development partners.
He said the police had also been blamed for their involvement in politics and advised them to maintain their neutrality to be able to enforce law and order.
The General Officer Commanding (GOC) the Northern Command of the GAF, Brigadier General J.A. Boampong, called for tolerance, collaboration and co-operation, saying that without these values, there would be confrontation, which would mar the peace of the country.