Reporter urged to be abreast with parliamentary rules

Feb 2011
Story: Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah

THE President of the Ghana Journalists Association, Mr Ransford Tetteh has charged journalists covering Parliament to be abreast with rules and procedures in the House.
He said since parliamentary reporting was a specialised field, journalists who covered the House would be able to educate and inform the people only when they themselves made efforts to have the rules and procedures governing the operations of the House on the tips of their fingers.
Mr Tetteh was addressing a workshop organised by Parliament for selected members of the Parliamentary Press Corps at Dodowa under the theme “Effective media coverage for sustainable parliamentary democracy”.
The two-day workshop was used to discuss and fine-tune a guideline which had been developed to assist journalists covering Parliament in their reportage.
Mr Tetteh also called on editors of the various media houses to refrain from frequently changing their parliamentary reporters since keeping them in the House for a longer period would improve their output.
The Director of Public Affair of Parliament, Mr Jones Kugblenu said Parliament considered the Press Corps as a critical component and would work hard to improve on the skills of members of the corps.
He commended executives of the corps for putting in mechanisms to ensure a vibrant group of parliamentary reporters.
In his welcoming address, the Dean of the Parliamentary Press, Mr Andrew Edwin Arthur stated that parliamentary reporting was a specialised field requiring professionally trained journalists who would bring professionalism to bear on their work.
“It will surprise you to know that some of the current crop of members of the press corps have backgrounds like secretarial, stenography, teaching, while some are trained pastors with others not being able to disclose how they trained to become journalists,” he said.
He said that and other factors had contributed in no small measure to the wrong reportage that had in most cases dragged the good name of the press corps in the mud.
Mr Arthur said it was therefore a welcome news that Parliament and the press corps were both looking for ways of improving the quality and standards of parliamentary reporting.