Nii Lantey-Vanderpuije, an Aide to President Mills, says the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) has no moral right to criminalize the New Punch Editor, Ato Sam (Baby Ansaba).

“Ransford Tetteh cannot tell me he does not know that these things happen within the journalism profession,” argued Nii Lantey.

He noted that a lot of members of the GJA are aware and guilty of the same things they are criminalizing the New Punch Editor for, and if he had his way, he would honour him for his courage and with him mount a campaign to fight unethical breaches.

“I know some people in the GJA who leading up to the elections were part of meetings, communication groups of certain political entities and they were there when certain things were contrived; by the ethics of the profession they knew it was wrong but they closed their eyes and had those things headlined and printed in newspapers and they have not confessed. They can’t say things don’t happen,” he argued.

Nii Lantey-Vanderpuije was speaking on Metro TV’s Good Morning Ghana programme Thursday.

Admitting that it is time to give the journalism profession the respect it deserves, Mr Vanderpuije said he would rather prefer that the association uses Baby Ansaba “as a symbol to clean our house” [to rid the GJA of unethical practices].

Abdul Malik Kweku Baako, the Editor-in-Chief of the New Crusading Guide and a co-panelist on the programme noted that the courage Baby Ansaba displayed in confessing his so-called sins, is suffering a deficit because he is hiding under the guise of ethics in order not to disclose those in the New Patriotic Party he claimed also engaged him in such acts.

“Who and who were the sources of those fabrications?” he questioned, adding that if he decided to make this kind of confession, he might have thought through it and was aware of its huge implications.

Mr Baako said that Baby Ansaba should have been prepared in terms of the ‘where, when and how’ he was going to confess in order for him to be ready to make a self defence.

Admitting that no journalist or editors is immune to ethical breaches, the New Crusading Guide Editor-in-Chief noted that he has been hauled before the media commission in relation with such breaches, some of which he won and others he lost.

Mr Baako pointed out that Baby Ansaba has never been a member of the ‘coffee shop mafia’ as popular opinion has it and that members of that group did not associate themselves with the story of then candidate Mills’ health, adding that those who had something to do with the story did it at their own discretion.

On the issue of travelling as part of a presidential delegation, Kweku Baako noted that under ex-president Kufuor’s regime, he travelled only three times and that the first time was in year 2007. He added that he could have travelled 200 times if he were interested, noting that a lot of the members of the ‘coffee shop mafia’ did not travel with the ex-president.

He noted that if Baby Ansaba fabricated the stories as he is claiming he did for political capital, then “I will say that it was a disaster”.

Source Myjoyonline