November 24, 2017 By Ransford Felix and Dusuba Koroma
The independent Radio Network has yesterday 23rd November, 2017 disclosed to press men that are going to deploy 650 reporters across the country to cover the March 7th 2018 multi tier elections.
The IRN coordinator, Ransford Wright made this disclosure at the weekly press briefing at the ministry of information conference room in revealing their level of preparedness ahead of the 2018 elections.
According to him the stationing of the 650 reporters is for them to disseminate accurate, efficient information in real time, he stated.
For the 2018 election IRN is part of the Standing Together for Democracy Consortium which is a consortium that was launched with a twenty month electoral cycle support project with an over arching goal of parenting the conditions for free, fair and peaceful elections and ensuring that everybody is inclusive even with people living with disability issues.
He noted that even though the 650 reporters will not be able to man the whole country noting the introduction of new constituencies through the boundary delimitation as they are planning to recruit more reporters prior to the election.
Also, in ensuring that the 2018 elections is free and fair by enhancing the quality, availability of credible and reliable of information flow o Democratic rights of citizens including the marginalized segment of the society, IRN has introduced new method of operation that will aid to a successful elections.
He added that Radio stations have signed to a code of conduct that they will abide by during the electioneering process that the code will serve as a document regulating reporters and Radio stations during the Electioneering period.
He also said that they have created a mobile application [APP] that will be accessible on Google play store and other OIS networks, adding that they are doing some recommendations before launching the Application.
According to him the Application will integrate social media and Radio, adding that social media was not as active in the 2012 elections as it is today, on that note in order to refute false information from social media, “ the Application will serve as a channel for giving accurate information on a timely basis during the election period and the Application will be accessible on smart phones” he stated