The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has held a training workshop to equip journalists to discourage political propaganda and hate speech on their various platforms.
It was to empower journalists with the necessary skills to counter the spread of hate speech, false information and political propaganda, leading up to the 2024 general election.
It was also to minimise divisive narratives in the media landscape that had the tendency to endanger peace, stability and social cohesion.
The training brought together selected journalists from the Northern, Upper East, Upper West, North East and the Savannah Regions to enhance the media’s role in fact-based conflict-sensitive reporting and information hygiene for peace.
The three-day training, which ended in Tamale on Wednesday, was organised in partnership with the Norwegian Embassy in Ghana, Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) and co-funded by the German Cooperation, Australian Aid and the Denmark Embassy under the Atlantic Corridor Project.
Parti
cipants were sensitised on approaches to fact-based reporting, understanding conflict and violence, conflict sensitive reporting, preventing violent extremism and national response mechanisms among others.
Dr Angela Lusigi, Resident Representative of UNDP, speaking during the training, said ‘We recognise the role of mis/disinformation, political propaganda, hate speech in promoting electoral violence, hatred, violent extremism, which also undermines electoral processes and democratic values.’
She said through the dissemination of counter narratives, journalists could contribute to combating hate speech by sharing views that encouraged inclusion, equality and stability and entreated journalists not to peddle falsehood, and derogatory views against minority groups, adding such occurrences could fuel hatred, harassment and intimidation.
Mr Kwaku Krobea Asante, Programme Officer and Team Leader of Fact-Check Ghana, urged journalists to be circumspect of state-sponsored or politically driven disinformation agen
da in order not to mislead the public.
Mr Albert Yelyang, National Network Coordinator of the Ghana Office of the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding called on journalists to use their platforms to promote peace by
providing accurate, balanced and impartial information that would enable the public to make informed decisions.
Participants commended UNDP and partners for the platform to learn and improve on promoting sustainable peace in the run up to the December polls.
Source: Ghana News Agency