Broadcast journalist, Isreal Laryea has shared an opposing view to counter the claims of Minister of Information,  Kojo Oppong Nkrumah that journalists can hold party cards and remain objective in executing their duties.

According to the experienced Multimedia journalist, being a card bearing member of a political party will have some sort of influence in your professional duty.

Former Joy FM morning show host, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah during his vetting admitted that he was a card-bearing member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in 2012, when he moderated that year’s presidential debate for the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA).

Mr Oppong Nkrumah, however, said he did not let that influence his professionalism.

“I did not train as a journalist but when I got on the job my employers were kind enough to subject me to a lot of training both locally and internationally.

“One of the things that I was trained with is professionalism. To stay on the fact and to stay in the middle very often regardless of what your personal sentiments are on a particular matter. And I tried very hard to demonstrate that on my line of work when I was practicing as a journalist,” he told the committee in a response to a question posed to him by a member of the committee, Nii Lante Vanderpuye.

He added: “I do know that today there are a lot of journalists out there who are members, some are card bearing of various political parties. That in itself is not bad.

“The test is how you are able to do your work and professionalism so that at the end of the day, the average viewer or listener will say that has been a fair job. It doesn’t seem to have pondered to any side.”


But speaking to Bola Ray on Starr Chat on Starr FM Wednesday, Israel Laryea insisted that a journalist holding a party card will obviously cloud his or he sense of objectivity in the discharge of his or her professional work.
“It’s a big deal it shouldn’t happen, clearly it will compromise you. He says that he wasn’t compromised, truth be told if you look back on him there is no way you can tell that he had been compromised, he was a professional. Even while he was on air there were people who thought he was NDC and there were others who thought he was NPP. It’s one of the things that we get worrying us a lot, people call us all sorts of names saying you belong to this camp or that camp but I feel that the more they say that about you the more independent you actually are.”