The National Media Commission (NMC) on Thursday warned Mr. Seth Korankye, Editor of the defunct Weekend Chronicle to comply with the commission's directive to him to apologise to the First Lady, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, Amina Rawlings and Yaa Asantewaa Rawlings for castigating and tarnishing their reputation.
A statement signed by Mr Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafooh, Executive Secretary of NMC said Mr. Korankye has shown utter disrespect and disregard to the commission and has persistently refused to appear before it for the settlement of the issue.
It said if Mr Korankye failed to appear before it, "the commission will be compelled to take action as it deems fit and appropriate under the circumstances".
The complaint borders on articles, which appeared in two editions of the Weekend Chronicle number 23, of Thursday May 18- Wednesday May 24, 2000 and number 24 of Thursday 25- Wednesday May 31, 2000.
"The articles carried the portrait of the complainants and members of the family and speculated that the third complainant, who was unmarried, was pregnant and further imputed that the second and third complainants were not being properly brought up by their parents," the statement said. According to the statement, Nana Kofi Coomson, a director of the Crusading Media Limited, publishers of the Weekend Chronicle at the commission's first sitting on the case admitted that the publications were speculative.
"Mr. Coomson agreed that to the best of his knowledge the publication was speculative and that none of the unmarried complainants was pregnant and that the publishers, however, got to know of the allegation after its publication".
The statement said, " when they got to know of the facts, the publishers felt that the articles were in bad taste and therefore decided that a third follow-up be withdrawn and was accordingly withdrawn."
The commission observed with dismay that, even after a formal complaint had been lodged with it, in respect of the two previous publications, Mr Korankye, nevertheless, proceeded to do a third follow-up article with absolute disregard for the complaint before the commission.
Based on the above, the commission has directed Mr Korankye to publish an unqualified apology to the complainants two times in one of the national dailies and the Ghanaian Chronicle.
The draft of the apology should be approved by the commission before its publication, and should be issued and published within one month from the date of this decision.
The statement stressed that when complains are lodged with the commission, all parties are expected to desist from further publications about the matter complained of till such time that the commission had been able to investigate and pronounce on it.
