Journalists must tell real life stories - Minister

Accra, June 2, GNA - Journalists in the districts and remote areas should write stories that would make an impact on the lives of the poor and the underprivileged.

"Journalists must tell real life stories and must be practical. They must write on current issues for people to know whether their lives are changing for better or worse," Mr Stephen Asamoah-Boateng, Minister of Information and National Orientation, said on Monday. He was opening of a three-day workshop organized by the Information Services Department (ISD) for 28 newly recruited journalists in some districts of the northern sector.

Mr Asamoah-Boateng urged journalists working in the districts and remote areas to let people know more about government policies. He advised the new journalists to upgrade their knowledge-base continually in order to become relevant to their communities. "People in the communities where you would be working need to know more about government policies such as the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) so that they can utilize the benefits of such policies to better their lives. If you are not knowledgeable and you are unable to inform the people on such policies then you are not relevant to the community," he said. He urged the journalists not to limit themselves to writing feature articles but must make use of any medium available in their working communities to deliver factual information to the people. Mr Asamoah-Boateng advised the new journalists to avoid writing stories based on their partisan interests.

He said ISD would provide incentives for them to work hard to support the District Information Officer in their respective communities.

Mr Elvis Adinyinah, Acting Director of Information Service Department (ISD), said the workshop was the second in a series of training programmes that the ISD was organizing for its field staff to ensure efficient performance of their duties.

He said the first workshop was organized for 45 journalists in districts of the southern sector. Thirty-five journalists are to attend the second one for the northern sector but only 28 have so far reported. Mr Adinyinah said each of the trainees would be given a page on the ISD portal after the training where their progress reports would be monitored.

The trainees would be taken through programmes such as photography, news writing, Introduction to Public Relations, writing for the web, E-Journalism, Information Communication and Technology (ICT), Public Relations reports and feature writing.