The President of the Ghana Journalists Association is tasking Ghanaian journalists and media practitioners to live up to their billing as key actors in Ghana’s celebrated democratic experiment. Mr. Ransford Tetteh says with 2012 being an election year, the media carry a huge burden in contributing their quota to building a more united and successful nation. That duty, he says, they must discharge responsibly. The GJA president, who was speaking at a media interaction organized by Unilever Ghana, said the nation came to the brink of war in the 2008 elections and this must not be revisited. “It is my prayer and I encourage my media colleagues again that let it not be said that this democracy that has been extolled so well all over the world was brought to its knees because the media people were reckless. In 2008 we were nearly on the brink, we would encourage those people who were involved in that to just think about the future of this country, this beautiful country and look around, Rwanda, Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia. Look at the war situations in those countries, it is difficult building from the ashes of war…” Mr. Tetteh, also editor of the Daily Graphic said elections are about choices and the majority choice must be respected since that is the beauty of democracy, a path he said Ghanaians have followed since 1992. Journalists, he said, must concentrate on providing accurate, fair and balanced information on the elections to the electorate and desist from providing platforms for people to engage in insults and intemperate language, pointing out that politics is about issues and ideas and never about insults. “Let’s make sure that we cut off those who are interested in the insults, let’s give more platforms to those who will engage on the issues – classrooms without teachers, hospitals without nurses and doctors and medicines, and villages without roads, water and sanitation facilities… Those are the issues we should challenge the politicians to provide the answers and if we do that…our business will also blossom and we will not continue to receive the slave wages. If we give the platform for people to destroy this country, even the small that we enjoy today will be taken away from us. Let us not allow it.” Ransford Tetteh expressed the gratitude of the association to Unilever Ghana for its continued support for media excellence and the GJA Awards, praying that the benefits continue to be mutual.