NMC directs 5 newspapers to apologise to Akufo-Addo
The National Media Commission (NMC) has directed five private newspapers to retract and apologise to the 2012 Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, for publishing offensive and derogatory stories about him.
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The five newspapers are the Daily Post, Enquirer, Informer, Ghanaian Lens and Al-Hajj.
According to a statement signed by the NMC Chairman, Mr Kabral Blay-Amihere, in Accra, the publications included headlines such as “AKUFO ADDO BUSTED AT LAST” by the Daily Post , “AKUFO-ADDO GOES DEAF, BLIND AND DUMB” by the Daily Post, “AKUFO-ADDO LINKS WITH DRUG BARONS CONFIRMED”, by the Ghanaian Lens.
Others were “NPP MEN FACE EXTRADITION” by Al-Hajj, “After Hon Agyepong’s Revelation on Radio ARRESTED DRUG BARON MET NANA ADDO IN 2012….To plan how to finance presidential campaign”, by the Enquirer and “AKUFO ADDO LIES ABOUT HIS ASSOCIATION WITH ARRESTED DRUG DEALER”, by the Informer.
The complain
The statement said Nana Akufo-Addo made the complaint to the NMC between June 8 and June 16, 2014 saying that “substance of the stories complained of are in all essential utterly false, a product of the imagination of the publishers of the newspapers specified above”.
However, it said the newspapers failed to respond to any of the invitation by the NMC Settlement Committee and offered no explanation for their failure to respond to the invitation after it had been established that the newspapers truly published the allegations.
“The stories do not meet standards and principles outlined in the professional guidelines of the Commission and the code of ethics of the Ghana Journalists Association which enjoin journalists to observe core journalistic values such as truthfulness, fairness and accuracy and objectivity,” it said.
Accordingly in line with Section 15 of the NMC Act 449, the NMC directed the mentioned newspapers to retract and apologise to Nana Akufo-Addo.
