Purge your reportage of sensationalism – GIMPA Rector to Journalists

The Rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Professor Philip Ebow Bondzi-Simpson has charged journalists in Ghana and the African continent as a whole, to purge their reportage of sensationalism.

Addressing the opening ceremony of a two-day training programme organized by the African Centre of International Criminal Justice (ACICJ) at the GIMPA Law Faculty for journalists from over ten (10) different African countries, Professor Bondzi-Simpson said, giving regard to issues of violence that have occurred on the African continent in recent past such as in Burundi and the role journalists have played in the occurrence or otherwise of these crimes, it is time for media practitioners to pay greater attention to the way and manner they go about their profession.

“Journalists have had a significant role in either igniting or dousing the conflagrations,” Professor Bondzi-Simpson said.

He proceeded to ask some rhetorical questions, “What do we report and how do we report? Do we analyze? Do we sensationalize? Do we trigger or do we educate, heal and restore?

“Journalism definitely is critical to how society will run and unfold and an appreciation by the practitioners and the students of journalism is critical,” the GIMPA Rector added.

The Netherlands Ambassador

The training programme which is titled “International Criminal Law and Justice: An Overview,” was put together by the ACICJ (GIMPA) in collaboration with the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Ghana.

In his message of support, the Ambassador of the Netherlands to Ghana, Ron Strikker, indicated that with the Netherlands being the host country of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Embassy finds it very necessary to support every effort to educate journalists who are the watchdogs of society as far as impunity is concerned, about the work of the ICC.

He charged the journalists participating in the training programme to take full advantage of same and learn everything they ought to know about the ICC in order to use the knowledge to influence their reportage on the prosecution of international crimes.

ICC Representative

Dahirou Sant-Anna, the International Cooperation Advisor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) represented the ICC Prosecutor, Ms Fatou Bensouda, at the opening ceremony.

In his keynote address, Dahirou Sant-Anna, noted that the ICC as an international establishment has an urgent need to foster good relations with the media to guarantee accurate reportage of its work.

He urged the participating Journalists of the two-day programme to seek to understand the Court, it’s functioning, proceedings, the way it operates and to be able to better explain its activities.

“Whether we act as a Judicial institution or as media professionals, let’s keep in mind that at the end of the day this about the victims and the accountability for the crimes they have suffered,” Dahirou Sant-Anna said.

The Training Programme

The two-day training programme will have eight sessions, the last of which will be a panel discussion on the topic, Cyber Security, Crime, and Jurisdiction in Cyberspace: The Future of International Crime. The panelist for the discussion will include Elvis Kofi Hovor, a Cyber Security & Crime Expert, Dr. Yankson, Head of the Cyber Crime Unit of the Ghana Police Service, Dr. Nnenna Ifeanyi-Ajufo, Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Lancaster University, Ghana, Jean-Jacques Badibanga, Senior Trial Lawyer of the International Criminal Court and Dahirou Sant-Anna, International Cooperation Advisor of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The remaining sessions will amongst others consider topics such as Covering International Crimes: The Role of the Media, and Overview of the International Criminal Court: Structure, Jurisdiction and Preliminary Examinations.

Additionally, the remaining sessions will focus on the Basics of International Criminal Law and Justice: Getting to Know and Understand International Crimes and Practice at the ICC: Trials and Cases.

The ACICJ

The African Centre of International Criminal Justice (ACICJ) is dedicated to growing the body of knowledge on International Criminal Law & Justice (ICLJ), its necessity and the place of Africa within that paradigm. The ACICJ was conceived as a result of the success of the International Criminal Court (ICC) & Africa Conference held at GIMPA in March 2016.

The aim of the ACICJ is to centre the ongoing discourse on Africa’s role and place in the work of the International Criminal Court (ICC) as it applies to the continent.

The Centre hopes to formalize the network of conference participants as well as International Criminal Law Scholars from all over the world to sustain the conversation, engaging the greater ICLJ community, as well as serve as a focal point for ongoing research, scholarship and training on the ICC and broader ICLJ issues across the continent.