Gambia Press Union on Thursday held a daylong media-political dialogue forum between journalists and political parties with the aim of creating cordial relationship between the two parties.
The forum was designed to serve as a platform to engineer better understanding of the role of the media in enhancing democracy with objective of sensitizing political parties on the role of journalists and make them understand their obligation as government-in-waiting in the protection and safety of journalists.
This forum is part of GPU’s efforts towards promoting and safeguarding the safety and security of journalists.
Mustapha Darboe, GPU Vice President described the dialogue as key saying “the political parties are one of the most important instruments of governance in a democracy state, this are the institution that will later come to form a government in any country”
Therefore, engaging them regarding the assaults on media and journalist will pace a way, he said.
“We have realized quite a number of attacks on media and journalists, which come from political parties or political parties’ supporters, and this is very important because we believe that attack stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of journalist as relate to how they do their work,” he said.
According to him, the project is part of efforts to enhance democracy and rule of law in this country, and a key component of the project is to enhance the safety and security of journalists.
“So far we had attacks from a number of political parties, so having a dialogue between the media and political parties are very fundamental to our collective understanding of our very respective roles.”
Mr. Darboe said people cannot talk about the safety of journalists in isolation of political parties as safety is concern. Therefore, for a sustainable solution, this was the reason for calling the senior leaders of the political parties to have a frank dialogue with a view to ensure that those kinds of things are avoided.
Mr. Joe Colley, Rep from Independent Electoral Commission, said Political parties and the media are key stakeholders, they have to try and understand each other because most of the time there is suspicious between the two, he said
Colley commended GPU for bringing together media and political parties to dialogue.
Lamin Cham, Chief Editor of Standard Newspaper, also presents on Media as the fourth estate of government.
He pointed out that, Journalists are not busybody persons who poke their noses in people’s affairs.
“The very constitution which established political parties, is the same constitution that establish the media as the fourth estate,” he added.
