Donkor: A Case Study of the Safety of Journalists in Ghana

Diedong, Africanus L.

doi:10.4314/gjds.v14i1.10

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…Before the COVID-19 pandemic, financial insecurity from the non-payment of salaries or underemployment has plagued journalists in developing countries because many news organisations cannot afford resources that make journalists safe (Diedong 2017). Compared to the pre-COVID-19 period, we found that journalists' financial insecurity was heightened as spending increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.…”

Section: Financial Insecuritymentioning

confidence: 62%

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Endangered Voices: Nigerian Journalists’ Safety amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

Alade

Sanusi

2022

Health Crises and Media Discourses in Sub-Saharan Africa

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This chapter examines the difficult conditions Nigerian journalists faced while reporting during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on the threats and dangers faced by Nigerian broadcast journalists and its implication for journalism practice amid a pandemic. Using a qualitative approach, we conducted nine in-depth interviews (online) with broadcast journalists in 2020 and employed thematic analysis to address the study’s findings. The study found that the safety threats encountered by journalists during the COVID-19 outbreak include the risk of contracting the virus, financial insecurity, and emotional trauma, among others. To combat these safety threats, journalists were responsible for their safety; hence, they ensured adherence to safety protocols with little or no support from the media houses they worked for. The implication of these safety threats to journalism practice includes reduced work output, reduced dissemination of factual reports, low-quality stories, and the lack of in-depth and investigative news reports during the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria.

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Section: Financial Insecuritymentioning

confidence: 62%

“…By not providing PPEs and appropriate equipment for reporting news during the pandemic, media organisations were positioned as sources of safety threats to journalists. This is an interesting finding because apart from censorship violations, media houses are seldom recognised as perpetrators of safety threats against journalists (Diedong 2017).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 96%

Endangered Voices: Nigerian Journalists’ Safety amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

Alade

Sanusi

2022

Health Crises and Media Discourses in Sub-Saharan Africa

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“…Second, we found that the term 'safety' largely is limited to harassment, incarceration, and bodily harms in the small number of scholarly papers written about the safety of journalists in places that are not war and conflict zones (Baker, 2016;Saboory et al, 2017). Some articles talk about arrests of journalists and attacks on news outlet offices (Diedong, 2016;Srinivasan, 2016). A few talk about safety issues that journalists face in the virtual world (Barton & Storm, 2014;Çalışkan, 2019).…”

Section: The Scope Of This Study: Safety Of Journalists In Bangladeshmentioning

confidence: 99%

Re-Conceptualizing Safety of Journalists in Bangladesh

Hasan

Wadud

2020

MaC

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Journalists are currently facing a multitude of threats. Commonly, these are considered in terms of harassment and bodily harms such as incarceration and murder of journalists. In the Bangladeshi case we argue that the parameters for evaluating what constitutes safety for journalists go beyond conventional wisdom. On the basis of in-depth interviews of 23 Bangladeshi journalists, we argue that the concept of journalists’ safety has three intertwined dimensions. First, journalists’ safety incorporates avoiding bodily harm (imprisonment, enforced disappearance, and so forth), and harassment, as well as economic and career threats. Second, in order to remain safe, journalists undertake various tactics including compromising the objectivity of news in a regime where security apparatus and pro-government journalists work in tandem to surveil and intimidate non-partisan journalists. Third, the tactics used by journalists decrease public faith in the media and the media can no longer play a watchdog role. We argue that one needs to reconceptualize the safety of journalists within these three intertwined dimensions.

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“…Like previous works (e.g. Tettey, 2001;Diedong, 2016;Nyarko and Akpojivi, 2017), this study adopts the point of departure that freedom of the press is necessary for the proper functioning of Ghana's burgeoning democracy, especially in the functioning of the media as a Habermasian public sphere, its functions in informing citizen participation in the nation's democracy, and its functions as a watchdog on the State and powerful interests. Thus Ghana's 2018 Reporters Without Borders ranking as number one in Africa and number 23 in the world in terms of press freedom is celebrated as a remarkable achievement (Reporters Without Borders, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Media under Siege: When Civil Society Actors Use Violence to Gag the Media in Ghana’s Northern Region

Alhassan¹,

Odartey‐Wellington²,

Shaibu³

2019

RJMC

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In recent times, Ghana has been lauded as a bastion of press freedom in Africa. However, drawing on the work of Johan Galtung that locates the media in a vortex of the State, Capital and Civil Society, this study problematizes the phenomenon whereby civil society elements in the Northern Region of the West African nation attenuate media freedoms through violence and intimidation of media workers. Adopting the point of departure that freedom of the press is necessary for the proper functioning of Ghana's burgeoning democracy, this study, through interviews with radio station management and staff, confirms that radio stations in the Tamale metropolis of the region adhere to a self-censorship regime as a result of this phenomenon, with inimical consequences for the health and integrity of the public sphere. This study therefore expands the discussion of media censorship beyond the more popular paradigms of State or Capital dominance over the media. While this study confirms the existence of the phenomenon of Civil Society censorship of media, it suggests a failure of the State to guarantee the safety of broadcasters in the Tamale metropolis. It also suggests a weakness of the journalists' association at the national level to advocate on behalf of members who face violence and intimidation in the course of their duties at the regional level in Tamale.

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Donkor: A Case Study of the Safety of Journalists in Ghana

Abstract: This paper argues that the safety of journalists in Ghana can no longer be taken for granted given the available evidence of physical attacks on journalists (Joint Statement NMC et al., 2016 andMFWA, 2016). The

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Endangered Voices: Nigerian Journalists’ Safety amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

Endangered Voices: Nigerian Journalists’ Safety amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

Re-Conceptualizing Safety of Journalists in Bangladesh

Media under Siege: When Civil Society Actors Use Violence to Gag the Media in Ghana’s Northern Region

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