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Mr Roland Affail Monney, President of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) has hinted of plans by media groupings to form a Strategic Media Communication Team to deepen awareness creation on the COVID-19 pandemic.

The strategy is to weed out rumours and fake news hampering the fight against the spread of the virus.

Mr Monney said this at a press conference organised by the Ministry of Information for stakeholders on updates of the national situation and response to COVID-19 in the country.

He believed harnessing the synergies and resources of the Private Newspapers Publishers Association of Ghana (PRINPAG), GJA and the Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association (GIBA) would help stop fake news and the spread of rumours with focus on facts from legitimate sources.

Mr Monney appealed to the media to capture the national mood and carry the people along through radio, television and other media programmes.

“Make use of your prime time allotments and front pages to aggressively pursue change of attitudes and communicate the science of the virus and how it is acquired”.

“Let us re-engineer our programmes to bring relevance and raise the stakes in combating the virus,” he said.

Mr Monney said the collaboration among stakeholders would address the issues in a coordinated manner and bring clarity to the vexed issues.

Mr Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, Minister of Information said the Ministry with support from other stakeholders had trained journalists on crisis reporting and working to extend the training to regions yet to have their turn.

He urged media programme producers and editors to get scientists, virologists and epidemiologists to speak to the science and facts about the pandemic and stop empanelling political activists.

The Minister said educative materials were being produced into various local languages with the Information vans and local radio stations mainstreaming issues.

Mr Oppong Nkrumah said traditional authorities were main stakeholders and said government was counting on their cooperation to reach out to people in the communities.