<<Print>>

The Propaganda Secretary of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC), Richard Quashigah has launched a blistering attack on Journalists and media owners in Ghana, accusing them of being biased in their reportage of stories concerning the Mills-Mahama administration. According to senior NDC member, most media houses and journalists do not subject members of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) to the same grilling government officials and members of the NDC are subjected to when national issues arise. Richard Quashigah said the reason is mainly due to the NDC�s antecedents with the media and the �fact� that the opposition NPP is better at handling the media and media warfare. The NPP is also more likely to �bribe� journalists, he stated. Mr Quashigah, who was delivering an academic lecture at a workshop for international Journalists in Accra, noted that the NDC�s response to media criticisms is not the best for both party and government. According to him, due to the seeming ownership of majority of the media houses by the opposition, the NPP�s candidate always gets favourable coverage, unlike other political figures, especially President Mills. �The NPP�s leader, Akufo-Addo as well as former President Kufuor�s bizarre outbursts get very little ink. Akufo-Addo goes somewhere and makes very outrageous comments and it is not popular in the media. The media don�t write about it much but let it be President Mills, there would be trouble, every newspaper would be writing about it and they will keep discussing it�. Mr Richard Quashigah further alleged that the NPP have taken advantage of the poor remuneration of Journalists in the country and are using it to their advantage. �Media practitioners in Ghana are poorly remunerated and we are all aware of that; many fall for monetary rewards, a stock-in-trade of the NPP. When the NPP was in power they spent a whopping 6 billion cedis to bribe Journalists. �Most Media proprietors in Ghana are pro-NPP or executive members of the party so you can imagine why NDC has only 30% favourability in the media�. He also lamented the fact that the party�s communicators sometimes fail to be inconsistent. Reached for comment on Citi FM�s Eyewitness News of Thursday August 25, 2011, Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, National Chairman of the NPP, laughed off Richard Quarshigah�s bribery allegations. The supposed drop in media persons' liking for the NDC was rather a reflection of the Mills government�s failure to deliver on its electoral promises, leading to hardships and a fall in standards of living, he contended.