The Deputy Greater Accra Regional Youth Organizer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr. Amorse Todoko Amos has accused the seat of government, Jubilee House for influencing “13 Political Parties Back New Register” the newspaper front-page headlines that dominated the media space today.
According to him in a Facebook post sighted by Awake News, despite the fact that over 16 civil society organization, Coalition of CSO for Good Governance also organized a public forum yesterday to register their disapproval of the EC’s decision to compile new voters register at the cost of over GHc443million, the media houses including the state-own ones did not see their programme and position newsworthy but rather that of the “13 Political Parties” that held a news conference to throw their support behind the EC on “New Register”.
“This morning at the newsstand, almost all the newspapers including the state-owned Daily Graphic and Ghanaian Times, have on their front page a headline that reads: “13 Political Parties Back New Register”. Interestingly, none of these papers have on their front pages anything on the forum organized by other political parties opposed to a compilation of a new register.” – He said.
Mr. Todoko is of the view that the headlines were influenced by top officials at the Jubilee House
Read his full statement:
This morning at the newsstand, almost all the newspapers including the state-owned Daily Graphic and Ghanaian Times, have on their front page a headline that reads: “13 Political Parties Back New Register”. Interestingly, none of these papers have on their front pages anything on the forum organized by other political parties opposed to a compilation of a new register.
Perhaps, their reps at yesterday’s forum have their stories buried somewhere in the inside pages of their respective newspapers. But the question to ask is, what makes a call by a group of political parties to back compilation of new register so special to merit front page of newspapers, as opposed to a contrary call by another group oppose to the new register? Worse of all, the forum organized to oppose the new register was organized by a coalition of Civil Society Organizations but our news editors believe a Jubilee House influenced headlined, ’13 political parties back new register’ is newsworthy as compared to a similar program of the same subject matter.
Every media house has its own editorial policy but that editorial policy is not beyond reproach. Ordinarily, we are not in a position to influence what they decide to publish but in this particular instance, it is clear that the headlines as we are reading this morning was cooked at the Jubilee House. It cannot be a coincidence that almost all the newspapers will have same headline.
If the Akufo Addo government has been very good in a particular area since it took office, it is how to influence publication to dictate the line of discussion for a particular week. Knowing very well all the radio stations and TV stations will review the newspapers and discuss same, they beautifully prepared a headline at the Jubilee House and paid for it to be published on the front pages. This was done to dwarf the forum organized to oppose the new register, and from discussions on radio and TV this morning, the government has succeeded.
We have been in this country for so long and appreciate how these things are done with the support of some corrupt news editors. Anyway, I don’t blame the editors. I blame my own people for not building their own when we got the opportunity.
By: Efo Korsi Senyo / awakenewsroom.com