UNESCO has urged journalists in Ghana to look beyond press releases and routine interviews and turn to the country's historical archives for deeper, more credible reporting.

The call came at a training workshop for journalists in Tamale on September 25, where participants were introduced to using records preserved in libraries, museums and other memory institutions to strengthen their work.

UNESCO Communication and Information Specialist at the Accra Office, Hamid Yakubu, said documentary heritage remains an important but largely underused source for journalists.

He said the records can help reporters fact-check information, uncover new angles, and place current events in historical context.

“Documentary heritage holds vital information about the evolution of a particular country, and this information is vital to the work of journalists,” he said.

Mr. Yakubu said journalists can use historical documents to verify claims and provide context to current developments.

He cited Ghana's national budget as an example, noting that reporters can examine previous budgets to identify patterns and trends to enrich their coverage of a new budget.

“You can give perspectives to stories by going to documents. For instance, very soon the Minister of Finance is going to read his budget. As a journalist, what can you do? You can go and look at previous budgets and see whether there will be similarities, dissimilarities and whatever,” he said.

He said Ghana has a rich collection of documentary heritage spanning key periods of the country’s history, including slavery, colonialism, the independence struggle, the post-colonial period and Pan-Africanism.

Mr. Yakubu said institutions such as the George Padmore Library and museums hold valuable information that journalists can use to add historical depth to their stories.

He said even a single historical document or photograph can provide multiple journalistic angles, citing an example shared during the Tamale training of how a single photograph was later used to tell a story and influence society.

Mr. Yakubu said the organization will continue to engage participants and encourage them to incorporate documentary heritage into their reporting.

“We're going to continue to monitor, to encourage them to do stories with not the familiar perspectives of how we go about doing our stories, but there are always angles that we can look at,” he said.

The next phase of the initiative will move the training to journalists in Accra.

UNESCO also plans to engage technicians who manage memory institutions and explore ways for the institutions and journalists to work more closely together, a collaboration the organisation believes will improve access to information and help unlock the wealth of knowledge preserved in Ghana’s documentary heritage.