By Mustapha Kamara Jr
Media stakeholders from different media and academic institutions and senior legal luminaries in the country, have reviewed and made relevant recommendations to the proposed media bills, which are intended to bring reforms in the media landscape of Sierra Leone.
The validation workshop exercise was held on Friday at Hotel Barmoi, Cape Road, Aberdeen in Freetown. It was organised by the Media Coordinating Reform Group (MRCG), which comprises stakeholders in the media and academic institutions in the country, as well development partners.
Speaking at the opening of the ceremony, coordinator of MRCG, Ransford Wright, said the workshop was meant to provide an opportunity for media professionals, legal practitioners and civil society activists to technically review and assess the draft media bills, and to see if it was in the advantage of citizens, media practitioners and government, before they were to be adopted and become law.
He said the urge to reform the media in Sierra Leone came following findings of a research that was conducted by the group in 2013, to map out the capacity needs of the media institutions in Sierra Leone.
Wright said the objective of the media development and reform process is to ensure that there was an enabling environment for professional and pluralistic media to operate, to improve media ethics, to encourage effective and efficient citizen participation on content in the media and to establish an independent and self regulatory mechanism for media professionals in the country.
He went on to explain further the need for media reforms to be initiated, noting that existing media laws in the country would be reviewed. He also said the emergence of new technologies had seriously impacted and brought new challenges on the operations of the media.
“Failure to reform will not empower us to face the complexity of the environment in which we operate,” Wright warned.
Chairman of the Independent Media Commission (IMC), Ambassador Allieu Kanu, said having studied the media landscape and it laws, he had noticed that both the IMC Code of Practice and the IMC Act needed to be reviewed.
Even though both documents have done tremendous work to regulating the media landscape in the country over the years, it was now time for the laws to be reviewed and improved so that it would address present challenges affecting the work of journalists and media institutions, he said.
Kanu said there had been lots of debates on the interpretation of specific laws in both the IMC Act of 2000 and the Media Code of practice, between journalists and lawyers.
“These two documents are very important to the IMC. They will strengthen and give the commission the requisite power to make the media landscape respectable not only in Sierra Leone but all over the world,” Ambassador Kanu.
Kelvin Lewis, president of the Sierra Leone Association of journalists, commended MRCG for undertaking such a project as it would have a significant effect on the democratic governance process of the country
“We are face with an opportunity that will affect us not just today but for the next ten years,” Lewis said.
He therefore advised all participants involved in the validation exercise to endeavour to make salient contributions. He said the reviewed laws would not only affect journalists and the media but also the country and its citizens.
(C) Politico 07/07/15
