By Garmah Never Lomo, garmahlomo@gmail.com
Internews through its USAID Liberia Media Activity (LMA) August drilled 20 Liberian journalists into best practices for moderating impartial election debates targeting candidates of the House of Representatives in five counties.
The training exercise took place in the Port City of Buchanan, Grand Bassa County on August 10 & 11, featuring community radio journalists from Margibi, Nimba, Lofa, Grand Bassa, and River Cess Counties. Those journalists are expected to moderate the lower house candidate debates with technical support from the Female Journalists Association of Liberia (FeJAL) and the independent Public Trust Media Group, Publisher of https://newspublictrust.com.
In 8 weeks, Liberia will go to elections marking the 5th presidential election after the civil war. Already, propaganda from political contestants and their followers has made headway as opposed to substantive national and constituent issues to inform electorates as the pick from over 900 candidates nationwide to fill a total of 88 seats at the legislature.
Internews Liberia Senior Media Advisor who served the training as lead facilitator, Jefferson Massah said USAID supported Internews to enable the media in Liberia to play an adequate watchdog role in these elections. From the perspective of grassroots journalism, Jeff said Internews has segmented the overall national debates into three stages. Electoral District debates are expected to be hosted by community radio journalists in their respective districts, while senatorial debates will be county staged and the presidential debates will be hosted at the national stage.
Some core subject matters discussed as guides for political debate moderation included Contextual Issue-based Research, Gender Sensitivity, ethical practices, and the election proceeding from the perspective of the National Elections Commission, the latest presented by NEC Communication Boss Henry Flomo.
In today’s media landscape are self-declared political commentators and mainstream journalists. Jeff Massah disclosed to the workshop attendees that the media development entity, Internews Liberia is aware that some journalists in Liberia find themselves between the clippers conflicted between partnership and Journalism. He cautioned participants in such a category to honorably distance themselves from the debate exercises because they wouldn’t be trusted by either the politicians or the community.
Speaking as one of its senior and media executive debate moderators, of the Public Trust Media Group (PTMG) urged journalists to put in their all by paying keen attention and taking notes on the various topics discussed at the training.
From two institutions selected by Internews Liberia to manage representative candidate debates in the 5 counties, Siatta Scott Johnson of FeJAL and Klonnius Blamo of Public Trust Media Group separately assured Internews of their groups’ commitment to seek nonpartisanship among moderators.
Mr. Blamo added that journalists should serve as peace ambassadors during the Liberian elections. Mr. Blamo referenced the clashes and rough edges between supporters of the Unity Party and Congress for Democratic Change in Monrovia.
The NEC Spokesman, Henry Flomo called on journalists to not only be debate moderators but also to serve as agents against violence on the accounts of communicating the truth on every side of the political divide and the National Elections Commission.
He also called on journalists to be impartial in their reportage, because their reportage will either lead to peace or war again as it’s happened in Rwanda.