Democrat Editor asked to retract story on Defence Ministry

The Ethics Committee of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) has requested "The Democrat", a private newspaper, to retract the story headlined "NPP To Create Commando Unit" published in its June 21 to 24 edition.

A statement issued on Thursday by the Ethics Committee signed by its Chairperson, Mrs Frances Ademola said The Democrat should do the retraction in the next two issues and apologise to the Minister of Defence, Dr Kwame Addo Kufuor.

The statement said the committee received a complaint from the Defence Minister that the publication was false and that the reporter failed to crosscheck the allegation levelled against him and the Ministry.

It said upon the complaint, the Editor of the Democrat, Alhaji Razak El-Alawa appeared before the Committee and admitted that the paper had not checked the story with either the Minister or the military authorities.

The statement said Alhaji El-Alawa, however, maintained that the story was true and promised to show the Committee supporting documents the following week. However, he has since not produced the documents to substantiate the allegations and has also failed to turn up after two reminders.

Consequently, the committee said, it has been compelled to conclude that the story was "calculated" to "embarrass" the Minister, since Alhaji El-Alawa has failed to produce documents to support the allegations contained in the publication.

"Accordingly, the Committee finds that Alhaji El-Alawa's conduct amounts to a breach of professional ethics under Act One of the GJA Code of Ethics. It finds such conduct from a journalist of Alhaji El-Alawa's experience and standing reprehensible.

"We trust that in future, matters bordering on national security would be treated with circumspection."