Umaru Sanda Amadu
GHANAIAN MEDIA personality and broadcast journalist with Citi FM and Channel One TV, Umaru Sanda Amadu, says he is alarmed by the rate at which society heavily criticises journalists who venture into politics.
Speaking at the American Space event at the US Embassy Ghana, Umaru Sanda noted that individuals from various professions move into politics after years of service and are hailed for their bravery, but journalists who make the same move are harshly criticised.
“A lawyer becomes a politician; there is nothing wrong with it. A carpenter becomes a politician and many hail him. A journalist becomes a politician and you are complaining. I don’t think that is fair to journalism. Journalism will teach you as a profession or a trade but at the end of the day, it is a personal choice,” he said.
“If I decide to go and run for Member of Parliament, it is because I am convinced that the ideas that I have, which I have been trying to ask the politicians to do, I can now roll my sleeves and go and do it. What’s wrong with that? I don’t think there is any problem with that. I don’t think we should criminalise journalists who want to pick up political positions,” he added.
The event, organised under the theme Freedom 250: “How United States Exchange Alumni are Shaping Journalism,” hosted other notable personalities including Cecil Nii Obodai Wentum, Alfred Ocansey, and Doreen Ampofo, Chief Editor of GBC. Cecil Nii Obodai Wentum, now Acting Public Affairs Director of the Ghana Highway Authority, spoke on the fading ethics of journalism due to the fast-growing space of digital media, particularly social media.
He made a passionate appeal to the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) to create an avenue where traditional media meets new media for an exchange programme.
By Prince Fiifi Yorke