The media has several roles to play, key of which is the watchdog and the gate-keeping roles. As the December general elections draw nearer and tensions are high, politicians have resolved to use the media as their tools for campaign. Of course, I am not against politicians using the media to get their messages across to the general public. I want to state emphatically that we should never underestimate the importance of the media especially in the upcoming elections. I am even tempted to say that the media has the potential to determine the outcome of this year’s elections. What is worrying however is the extent to which politicians are abusing the media to serve their own interests and worse still how some media personnel allow themselves to be manipulated by politicians. Some media houses have become tools for propaganda that politicians waste no time to use. Judging from the way media houses, especially radio and TV, sometimes host three or four members of one political party and probably one member of another political party to debate an issue; one would obviously conclude that the discussion or debate will favour the majority. At times, no member of an opposition party is included in the program. Furthermore, hosts of discussions or debates sometimes give some panelists the upper hand above others from the way they present questions to the way they interrupt submissions with counter questions. This sometimes infuriates some of the panelists who do not hesitate to object to the way they are being heckled by the hosts. Also, when debates are being made between two or more parties, it is not abnormal for tempers to rise at a point. What one would expect the host of the programme to do is to take a short break and calm tempers before continuing with the programme. However, hosts sometimes allow tempers to rise to the extent that panelists sometimes resort to personal attacks till things turn ugly before the programme is taken off air. At times, one does not need a magician to tell you from the way the programs are hosted that an agenda is being pursued. These hosts sometimes ignore listeners and viewers who call in or send text messages drawing their attention to their biasness. Some media houses also tend to exaggerate issues thereby putting unnecessary tension and fear in the general public just to incite people against one another. Another alarming incidence in our online media is the use of ‘dirty’ language by people who post comments on news stories and feature articles. Many of them do not comment on what is written but rather heap insults on the author. Judging from some of the comments, one would realize that some people do not even read the stories before commenting. This is due to the fact that many of the comments actually have nothing to do with whatever is written. Some of them are so shameless that they insult the authors’ family whom they probably do not even know. They usually hide behind fake names to carry out their heinous acts. I wonder the sort of message we send to the outside world with the sort of comments we post under stories. I think it’s a privilege that we are given the chance to express our opinions on stories that are published online. I do not know why people simply cannot express themselves in more dignified manner instead of calling one another foul names. We cannot blame our media personnel entirely. One of the major problems they face is the lack of incentives. According to a news report I watched on TV3 sometime ago, some journalists take less that GHC 200 a month! How can anyone survive on this amount for a whole month? This is why some of them resort to do politicians’ bid. The other issue is that some of the media houses are owned or sponsored by politicians. This automatically gives them the power to do and say whatever they want as and when they wish. We need to overhaul the insanity in our media. I want to begin by encouraging owners of media houses to pay our media personnel better than they do now and from time to time give them incentives just to discourage them from taking ‘sorli’ from people who want an agenda pursued. Online media houses should also find ways and means of screening comments before publishing for everyone to read. People who hide behind fake names to hurl insults about must also cease to do so. A journey of a thousand miles, they say, begins with a step. I therefore urge the public to take that bold step to do the right thing by posting reasonable comments under stories and articles so that we can all engage in clean debates towards having a free, fair and peaceful elections. Hosts of political talk shows must also at least try to be a bit more objective and fair in the way they handle programs in terms of time and space. This will prevent unnecessary arguments and insults that we hear on our airwaves in recent times. They must also control the phone-ins since many of them are serial callers who call to throw abusive languages about. Hosts must also try to balance their panel memberships. This will make it possible to have a better debate of issues so that the listening public can make informed decisions. There are some media houses and personnel who are objective or at least try to be. I want to congratulate and encourage them to continue doing so. I recollect an encounter between an NDC and NPP representatives on the Friday September 28 edition of Good Morning Ghana on Metro TV. When the discussion was becoming ugly, the host, Shamima Muslim just took a break and when they returned she as well as the two panelists apologized to viewers. The program went on smoothly afterwards. Only God knows the ‘magic’ she did behind the scenes before returning. I really admired her and wish all hosts will always do same or even better. We NEED sanity in our media and it will take all of us to achieve it. I therefore plead with all and sundry to work towards achieving that goal. When this is done, I believe the media will contribute significantly to the peace we need in the upcoming elections. MAY GOD BLESS OUR HOMELAND GHANA! Email: benedictabaka@yahoo.co.uk