Mr Tim Acquah-Hayford, Chairman of National Media Commission (NMC) has described a “Free Press” report, headlined “NMC chairman endorses imprisonment of journalists” as “factually wrong”.
A statement issued in Accra on Sunday and signed by the Chairman said “what was supposed to be a quotation by me was in the main the reporter’s own words”.
Explaining what transpired at a function where the Chairman was reported to have passed the comment, the statement said Mr Acquah-Hayford only made a comment on a contribution by a participant, Mr Segbefia, who compared journalism practice in western democracies to journalism practice in Ghana.
“I pointed out that the two situations were quite dissimilar. I stated that until 1992, Ghana had not known a free and an independent media”, the statement said.
Mr Acquah-Hayford, it said, rather expressed satisfaction at the great strides the profession has made even in the absence of a freedom of information Act and the existence of Criminal Libel laws in the statute books.
He said the media has been able to achieve the strides in the past seven years despite imprisonment, which serves as lessons in the nation’s developmental process.
The statement said the comments were made in the presence of the President of the Ghana Journalists Association, adding, “I wonder whether from these observations I had endorsed the imprisonment of journalists and said the incarceration of journalists in the country is part of the learning process of journalism”.
It described the quotation as words and an opinion the Chairman had neither used nor intended.
The statement noted that the NMC Chairman has nothing to apologise for saying, “rather, I deserve due apology from both the Free Press and the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation who carried the said story for unfair reporting”.
