ESTABLISHING JOURNALISTIC STANDARDS IN THE GHANAIAN PRESS

Abstract

This article documents how journalists worked to improve the journalistic standards in Ghana in the years from 1980 to the late 1990s in the face of the attempts of the political leadership in Ghana to manipulate and repress press freedom. The major premise of the research carried out in 2005 is that the improvement of ethical standards of journalists begins with the decisions of committed journalists in the daily routine of the newsroom to make the press a support of democratic governance and defence of human rights. These efforts move from personal values to establishing a professional culture through professional associations, the socialisation of young journalists in newsrooms, involvement in the training of journalists in academic institutions and inservice workshops, and working with government regulatory and complaints commissions. The research began with newsroom observations of two leading newspapers, interviews with leaders in journalistic reform and then finally focused on in-depth interviews with a sample of four journalists widely reputed by colleagues to be noteworthy in establishing standards. The interviews used life-history and professional history methods to permit these journalists to describe how they defined ethical norms in the process of routine news reporting