Election 2020: Some journalists were caught up in the euphoria of scoops – Juliet Amoah

Juliet Amoah, the Executive Director of Pensplusbytes, a media capacity-building organisation has indicated that their findings from the just-ended 2020 elections have established that many reporters were only interested in scoops.

Speaking at a press conference in Accra, Juliet Amoah explained that “some journalists got caught in the euphoria of scoops…” so, most of them took their information from social media and presented them as facts.

“Of course, there came the issue of not fact-checking enough…” she said.

She further stated that there were no clear lines between the interactions on [a] traditional media and non-traditional media.

“What happens with what the online news portals were doing […] was reporting from what they saw online and [on] other blogs, and some journalists were taking information from there and passing it on,” Juliet Amoah noted.

The media, after the 2020 elections, have been accused by the opposition NDC of churning out figures which were not accurate - figures which they used to project Nana Akufo-Addo, the candidate of the incumbent NPP as the winner of the presidential election.

Due to this development, some journalists have been physically attacked or vilified.