Improve on the conditions of service for journalists - Jefferson Sackey to media owners

Ghana ranks low in latest Press Freedom Index

Ghana did not experience any major anti-journalist incidents, Jefferson Sackey

Press Freedom Index monitors happenings within the media in 180 countries

A veteran journalist, who currently works in the Office of the President, as a Deputy Director of Communications, Jefferson Sackey, has made a case for journalists to be paid better than they currently earn.

He added that it is motivation at getting the professionals to give off their best.

He urged owners of media houses across the country to make it a duty of drawing up reasonable conditions of services that will cover particularly the salaries of their journalists.

In a report by graphic.com.gh, it said Jefferson Sackey was speaking about the regrettable remuneration and non-existing conditions of service that exist in many media houses in the country.

He also complained about the lack of payment of social security in many media houses, stressing that these are some of the factors that hamper professionalism and the delivery of quality in the work of the practitioners.

Also speaking about Ghana’s recent ranking by Reporters Without Borders, the former international journalist explained that the it is clear that the lack of the above-stated contributed largely to the downward ranking of Ghana in the rankings by the reputable global organization.

“The downhill spiral in Ghana’s scores as captured by Reporters Without Borders cannot be wholly blamed on the government’s supposed hostility towards journalists in Ghana.

This government has deliberately put several structures in place that rather give journalists access to information, including the passage of the Right to Information by Parliament in 2019 and signed into law by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in May that same year.

“Journalists are not paid well as the document stipulated. That aspect of the report is the gravamen of this whole brouhaha surrounding the outcomes of the survey,” he said.

He added that other factors must have contributed to the downward ranking, further explaining that within the period of the report, Ghana did not any major anti-journalist incidents.

In the Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders, Ghana dropped 30 places from its place in the last rankings.

The Index monitors happenings within the media in 180 countries.