The Chairman of the National Media Commission (NMC), Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafoh, has disagreed with the Ghana Journalists Association’s (GJA’s) decision to blacklist people who were alleged to have assaulted
journalists while in the line of duty. He said the call for boycott or blackouts by the GJA would not be
productive or functional to the public interest. Mr Boadu-Ayeboafoh was commenting on a recent directive by the GJA to blacklist two Members of Parliament of the New Patriotic Party,
Mavis Hawa Koomson of Awutu Senya East and Farouk Aliu Mahama of Yendi for their alleged attacks on journalists during the recent primaries of the party.
The NMC chairman was delivering the keynote address at a one-day training workshop organized by the GJA with support from the US Embassy for journalists from Ashanti, Bono, Ahafo and Bono East
regions on ‘Promoting Peaceful Journalistic Media Platforms Ahead of Election 2024.’

Mr Boadu-Ayeboafoh condemned the violent attack on journalists for exercising their public obligation of informing our people, which, he said, had “resulted in an equally unilateral decision of the GJA to calling
for a boycott or blackout of such people.” He added that, while the approach by the GJA was popular, “it is dysfunctional.”
According to Mr Boadu-Ayeboafoh, it was not enough to condemn such acts but to encourage victims to seek redress by reporting to the Mechanism for the Safety of Journalists under the NMC and the Ghana
Police Service. That, according to him, was to ensure that “the media freedom aspect as
well as the criminal dimension are adequately investigated and the necessary legal penalties are imposed on the criminals.”
He said he will support any effort to ensure that justice is done against all such deviant acts rather than a blackout or boycott and he added that condemning such acts is in order but not a blackout or boycott.