The spokesman of the Gambia government, Ebrima Sankareh has praised and commended the role of Gambian journalists as paramount in national development.

Mr Sankareh was speaking to over a dozen journalists who completed a rigorous intensive training on investigation recently.

As a guest speaker at the closing ceremony, Sankareh told the journalists that: “the role of the journalists in this new regime is paramount” adding that Gambian journalists are also ambassadors of the International Journalists Association.

He said now journalists in the country have a comfortable room to breathe in executing their jobs compared to the 22-year rule of Jammeh.  

“Today journalists could crisscross this country; you could write and say whatever you want to say without even blinking. You don’t have to worry about Mile Two anymore. You don’t have to worry for being sacked from your jobs or being detained in communicado but that also come with responsibilities,” he said.

Mr Sankareh said that journalism is also about being the custodian of truth and that journalists are mandated to investigate and account for what is right and not to be famous.

“Therefore the news that you carry must be accurate, it must not be prejudice, it must not be sentimentalize, it must not be born out of emotion but out of truth,” he said.

Despite government guaranteeing conducive environment for journalists to do their jobs, yet the draconian media laws are still in the statute book of the land.

But the Gambia Press Union, which is the umbrella body of Gambian journalists, is still pushing for the government to scrap the bad media laws.

Reporting by Adama Makasuba