SECTOR 4 The media practise high levels of professional standards. 4.1 The standard of reporting follows the basic principles of accuracy and fairness. The standard of reporting differs from one media organisation to the next. “We all have preferences, and some of that is based on how good of a job they do.” “I’ve weeded out the news sources that I consider to be inaccurate.” Panellists noted that one of the major issues in reporting is not so much the issue of accuracy, but rather that stories are often incomplete. “For example, there was a story on the Bank of Ghana hastily allocating a switch contract to a business. The article talked about the contract and what the issues are, but they provided no detail on who it was that they were talking about. No context whatsoever.” Inaccuracies feature constantly, and all too often reports on the same story, including from the same media house, will carry different figures, different spellings for names, and lots of other mistakes; people will challenge media houses in terms of what they have produced and sources who have been interviewed will call the media house, “saying that I didn’t say this or that.” “I’m not enthused about the level of professionalism here. There are serious accuracy issues. A journalist writes an article based on a company and fails to mention who owns the company, for example. This is a major slip up on the bigger story.” Accuracy is also threatened by the sensationalism and agenda-setting that exists in the media. “Too much ‘opinionating’ takes place in the news media. Journalists will start a story with some phrase or epithet to throw the story and sensationalise it. For example, one very well-respected presenter opened a story saying that in an apparent reprisal attack [after someone had been killed in Kumasi], someone has gone to shoot so and so. But the police are yet to ascertain information surrounding this shooting, making clear that no information [was] available. But he still started by saying it’s a reprisal attack.” To deal with the many inaccuracies experienced with reports on her organisation, a panel member explained that, “We now give them a media kit to use as a guide. We want to enhance the understanding of the reporter that is taking on the assignment, but they tend to highlight something else, rather than what we have provided. It always seems like we are directing the person, and that shouldn’t be the case.” 58 AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER GHANA 2017