The head of the United Nations broadcast operations in Liberia said Thursday that the nation’s media should feel compelled to operate at a higher-than-ever level of responsibility in the coming political season and that doing so could well prevent the kind of post election violence that has struck other African countries recently.
Joseph Roberts-Mensah, Officer in Charge at UNMIL Public Information in Monrovia, cited recent post election violence in Kenya in which more than 1,000 people were killed. He said it is critical that Liberia’s media, in writing about the 2011 presidential election, offer fair, balanced coverage that was “conflict sensitive.”

“We’re in a period when the politicians of this country will want to use the media to their own ends,” he said. “When you know that your mouths, your newspapers and radio stations can make a difference and control the destiny of this nation. You have to look at your own responsibility in covering the news. Your errors, your bad judgment, your lapses in ethics can lead to the destruction of this country.”

Mr. Mensah gave his remarks at the closing day of a journalism conference called “Preparing for Election 2011: A Symposium on Political and Election Reporting.” The Ford Foundation, the University of Liberia, the Press Union of Liberia, the Liberia Media Center and the DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy at Medgar Evers College in New York sponsored the symposium. The symposium was held at the University of Liberia.

Jonathan P. Hicks, a journalist and writer who is a senior fellow at the DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy, coordinated the symposium.  Mr. Hicks is a former financial and political reporter with The New York Times and the host of a radio program in New York. The two-week symposium brought together professional print and broadcast journalists along with mass communication students at the University of Liberia to discuss a number of topics related to coverage of Liberia’s 2011 presidential election.

Mr. Mensah also spoke strongly of the need for strict adherence to journalistic ethics in the upcoming election, explaining that some candidates may well use the tools at their disposal, including money media, to influence news coverage.

“You cannot separate your ethics and your honesty,” he said. “The fact is that when politicians pay for coverage and once you take their money, you’re bought and paid for. You become like livestock. Ethically, we have to draw the line. Coming toward the 2011 elections, there will be more money available to you than ever before. And if you compromise your ethics, it doesn’t benefit the people of this country.”

The theme of journalistic responsibility was also the topic of remarks by Emmet Dennis, the president of the University of Liberia, who spoke at the closing session of he symposium.

“We are approaching a critical time, a time when the temptation to be sensational will be greater than the need to have integrity,” Dr. Dennis said. “We therefore appeal to you who have gone through this process to practice the highest standards. “

He added: “We also appeal to Jonathan Hicks that, if in fact funding becomes  available, that such a seminar as this might occur in a staggered period of time toward our election.”

Additionally, Dr. Dennis said that he would leave “no stone unturned” in his goal to elevate the university’s mass communications department to the level of a college of information and communication technology.