Reverend Dr. Kwabena Opuni-Frimpong, a Lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) on Friday observed that the avalanche of religious messages exploding on the airwaves is making Ghanaians religiously confused.
He said the radio stations, television networks, newspapers and blogs have over fed Ghanaians who need just a small dosage of religious message to keep going.
Rev. Opuni-Frimpong who is also the Chairman of the Asante Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church was delivering the 75th anniversary lecture of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) on the topic: "Media and Religion."
The theme for the celebration is "The Broadcaster: Agent of Development."
It was the third in the series of lectures organised as part of the celebration.
Rev. Opuni-Frimpong said the media have provided the platform for quack priests to take advantage of the distress of the impoverished through deceptive healing, getting visas for people to travel abroad among others.
He noted that through those activities, these religious men have disintegrated marriages and made some social misfits by branding them
witches and wizards.
"A country where there are too much religious activities, economic development is reduced", adding, that was the situation that confronted Ghana currently.
He said there were all night programmes on the air waves every day which engage people to the detriment of working for their economic
emancipation.
He said it was unfortunate that people were paraded on Television and Radio stations to give testimonies of being healed and stressed that even in some cases, Jesus instructed recipients of his healing powers not to tell any one about their healing.
He noted that liberalisation of the airwaves in the 1990s which led to the multiplicity of Radio and Television had given profit making prominence as against the quality of what was put on air.
This, he said, compromised the quality of the message put on air and whoever could pay was given the chance to operate without scrutiny of
content.
He told officials of GBC not to make the mistakes of other radio stations as pace setters in broadcast industry.
"Do not compare yourselves to false standards for it will be a disaster for the country", he said.
He said Ghanaians repose so much trust in the media even more than the security services and called on the media practitioners to loyal to the people in the performance of their watchdog roles.
He noted that the hard work of the media had helped to eradicate unhealthy traditional practices such as female genital mutilation, widowhood rites, ritual murders and many others practices rooted in traditional practice.
He stated that the media had made the global village concept a reality as whatever happened around the world were announced with dispatch reducing the effect of distance as a barrier.
Opuni-Frimpong observed that the hard work of the media has also made it possible for women to be ordained as priests, a norm which was not
possible in the past.
He appealed to the media practitioners to be objective, balanced, and fair in their reportage.
He called for the establishment of religious departments for all Radio and Television stations in the country to regulate in house religious
content.