Media Consultant Michelle Betz has urged Journalists to work together as a team to ensure  their own safety during the election .

Speaking at  at a Workshop organized by the Media Foundation for West Africa for News Editors and Senior Journalists on safety for journalists during the elections, Michelle Betz said the elections are bigger than any individual media house's competitive interest and the need to get the facts right and ensure the safety of reporters should take preeminence over other interests.

"Getting it right goes a long way to ensuring your safety because politicians will find it difficult to single you out for criticism and attack," she said.

"No story is worth more than your life - no breaking story is worth dying for so you as journalists must work together at the individual level while you are in the field because your media owners will never agree to work together at their level," she said.

Michelle Betz  opine that, two weeks to the elections, media houses must work together in order to get it right and be safe instead of being preoccupied with competition.

She disclosed  that journalists working for international organizations like BBC, CNN, Sky News, Aljazeera and others, usually collaborate with each other in fact checking issues before publishing during the coverage of sensitive events like elections.

Violation of press freedom
A study by the MFWA on violation of press freedom in West Africa shows that Ghana tops as the worst offender of journalists’ rights this year, Head of Media Studies at Wisconson University, Prof. Kwame Karikari has revealed.

He said  25 cases of attacks on journalists have been recorded between January and Novembre in all West African countries, out of which Ghana tops with seven cases, representing 28% of the total.

Police
Prof. Karikari noted that the most worrying part is that out of the seven cases recorded in Ghana, six are violation committed by members of the security services, mainly the police.

He said this is an indication that journalists cannot even count on the police for safety in the course of their duty and that is a worrying trend.

Prof. Karikari, therefore underscored  the need for journalists and journalist associations to work together and find a way of using their numbers to create a safe haven for themselves while covering the elections.

He also urged the police and other security agencies to rid itself of the bad record and assure journalists and the public of their commitment to protecting democracy, including press freedom.

Fiifi Abdul Malik @fiifialmaestro on twitter