With Ghana's media coverage on climate change still lagging despite its severe impact on the country and press freedom ranking dropping from 30th to 62nd in the World Press Freedom Index in just two years, the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), has launched the 'Defending Media Freedom and Strengthening Climate Reporting' project.

This initiative, part of Sustainable Development Goals 13 and 16, aims to enhance climate reporting and press freedom in Ghana as the 2024 general elections approach.

Media freedom in Ghana has seen a decline with some journalists facing attacks, particularly during election periods.

The likes of Ahmed Suale who was murdered with no justice in years, and others like Latif Iddrisu, Anas Sabit, and Erastus Asare Donkor of the Multimedia Group, have faced various degrees of attacks in the line of duty.

In response, the Ghana Center for Democratic Development, in partnership with the Danish Embassy has initiated the SDG 13 and 16 project to promote media freedom and climate reporting. The Multimedia Group is one of the two media houses that received a grant to spark the conversation on media freedom as activities for the 2024 general elections intensify.

In an address, Channel Manager for JoyNews, Kwaku Owusu Peprah, who represented all brands from the Multimedia Group, emphasized the need to create a safe environment for journalists to operate. He noted that silence does not represent journalism.

“Silence is not journalism. So we will continue to scream, whisper, and hold the microphones wherever we go and ask the difficult questions.”

“We hope to go out there and come back to our families safe, so when we have support to amplify our voices that protect us, we will commit,” he added.

He cautioned politicians to allow journalists to do their job.

“The media does not talk about themselves. We will echo the media freedom till the ends of the earth until the politicians get to know that they cannot abuse us and go scot-free.”

Speaking to JoyNews, the Coordinator in charge of Strategic Partnerships and Projects at the Multimedia Group's Joy Brands, Emefa Atiamoah-Eli, explained that the Multimedia team's project will focus on defending media freedom, stakeholder dialogues and social media campaigns.

“The Multimedia Group will organize two major national Dialogues for the Southern and Northern parts of the country. The idea is to bring together stakeholders in the media to discuss what it requires to create a safe space for journalists, especially in the 2024 elections.”

The group will also train journalists on safety in the line of their work.

“On our platforms, we are training not less than 275 journalists across the country.”

Other institutions and organizations also received grants for climate reporting to highlight the impact of climate change and ways to tackle these effects.

The organizations won the grant to implement activities on SDGs 13 and 16.