NPC Chairman ‘moderates’ crossfire at Graphic editorial confab among political parties
The Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL) held the third in a series of special editorial conferences involving representatives of political parties to deliberate on the choice of stories to lead today’s edition of the Daily Graphic.
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The event which had the Chairman of the National Peace Council (NPC), Most Rev. Professor Emmanuel Asante, as the lead guest editor who chaired the conference, was specially arranged to commemorate Founder’s Day.
The GCGL, usually on public holidays, invites a team of public figures to serve as guest editors to participate in the production of the Daily Graphic. The initiative is to give people an insight into how the newspaper packages its stories.
In yesterday’s instance, the GCGL settled on Most Rev. Professor Asante in order that he could use his skills as a peace broker to douse any crossfire among the representatives of the political parties.
Political actors
Supporting the NPC Chairman to conduct the editorial conference were the Communications Officer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr James Asante; the Director of Communications of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Akomea; the General Secretary of the People’s National Convention (PNC), Mr Atik Mohammed; the acting General Secretary of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), Mr Yaw Asani Tanor; the running mate of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), Mrs Brigitte Dzogbenuku, and the Communications Director of the Democratic People’s Party (DPP), Mr Ernest Owusu Bempah.
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Story selection
Setting the tone for the conference, the Editor, Mr Ransford Tetteh, made introductory remarks and asked the Political Editor, Mr Kobby Asmah, to introduce the guests to the editors.
Afterwards, the NPC Chairman took control of the deliberations and asked the News Editor, Mr Nehemia Owusu Achiaw, to present the stories of the day to conference for consideration and selection by the acting Chief Sub Editor, Ms Rosemary Ardayfio.
President John Mahama’s address to the UN General Assembly was unanimously agreed by the editorial conference to lead today’s edition of the Daily Graphic. Other important stories were also selected for the front page and the middle pages of the newspaper
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After the selection of stories, the guest editors raised issues which were responded to by the Editor and his lieutenants.
During the discussions, Mr Atik Mohammed suggested to the conference to carry one single headline to encapsulate all the Founder’s Day- related stories to which conference accepted.
The PNC General Secretary further enquired from the conference the mode for selecting stories for other pages of the Daily Graphic to which Ms Ardayfio explained that stories that were not selected by conference still got published in the newspaper, since there were several other pages available.
Mr Owusu Bempah tried to convince conference to consider a story about the arrest of two armed robbers for the front page but it was shot down by Most Rev. Prof. Asante who argued that in as much it was a good story, Founder’s Day stories should take precedence over other stories, to the concurrence of the rest of conference.
Nana Akomea sought to know the number of pages in the Daily Graphic but in response he was told that the newspaper had varied number of pages depending on the day.
Concerns
Mr Atik Mohammed took issues with the Daily Graphic for its failure to cover the ‘outdooring’ of the PNC running mate, Mr Emmanuel Anyidoho.
Responding, the Political Editor, Mr Asmah, said it was not deliberate but was as result of lack of communication.
Mr Owusu Bempah also questioned why the Daily Graphic had on a number of occasions erroneously published a wrong photograph purported to be that of the founder of the NDP, Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings.
But in his response, the Editor, Mr Tetteh, said it was not deliberate and that as a human institution, the newspaper would not be able to satisfy everybody..
He told the conference that the Daily Graphic had endeavoured to be fair to all the political parties.
Nana Akomea wanted to know what informed the Daily Graphic’s decision to give prominence to the confusion that rocked the NPP sometime ago on its front page, while a similar incident of confusion in the NDC received very little attention.
The Deputy Editor of the Daily Graphic, Mr Kingsley Inkoom, explained that the decision to publish a particular event as a lead story was partly informed by the number of stories the newspaper had in its basket at a particular time.
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Jokes
With the task of producing today’s paper before them the usual acrimony that characterise political discussions was missing as they cracked jokes and teased each other.
As if to calm the political tension between the NDC and the NPP, Most Rev. Prof Asante was seated between Nana Akomea and Mr Asante.
When the other political parties were referred to as ‘small parties’ Mrs Dzogbenuku disagreed with that tag as she jokingly said the PPP was not a small party and to put the matter to rest the guest editor said instead “let us say the other parties” to which the conference burst into laughter.