Chapter 6 nothing but praise... because it is the press which educates public opinion and which also, by its agitations, is capable of dismissing Governments from power and parliamentarians from their seats' (Sampson 1934, pp. 7, 8). But, while expressing these confident sentiments about the role of the media in furthering democratic ideals, Sampson insisted that the'sacred duty' of the journalist was'to make the press helpful to the cause of peace and mutual understanding, rather than to encourage sham fights between individuals or parties'. He would, therefore,'without any hesitation condemn the journalist who would always make it a business to write on the bellicose side or who would encourage anything like that'(Sampson, 1934, p. 29). Echoes of these mixed sentiments have continued to resonate in the contemporary scholarly discourse of both media and political science researchers. 75 In the nature of partisan political systems, the government is constantly seeking space and airtime in order to address and impress Ghanaians on how far it has gone in delivering on the electoral mandate. On the other hand, the opposition would welcome every occasion of a press conference to respond to government actions and claims. The question to answer is: what diagnosis can we make of Ghana's political health by examining the content of media coverage of political issues? In this chapter, I attempt to address this question by examining the norms and values underpinning the presumed relationship between democracy and the media under the multiparty political system of governance.(Ampaw, 2004; Gunther and Mughan, 2000; Watson 2003). 75 See, for instance Doris Graber,'Mediated Politics and Citizenship in the Twenty-First Century', Annual Review of Psychology, 55(2004), 545-71; Sally Young, Saskia Bourne and Stephanie Younaneg,'Contemporary Political Communications: Audiences, Politicians and the Media in International Research', Sociology Compass 1/1(2007), 41-59. 212