LDI REACTS TO LABOR JOURNEY'S NEWS REPORT
The Liberia Democratic Institute (LDI) has regarded the Liberian media a formidable partner and ally in its crusade for democratic revival and civic enlightenment in Liberia . Within the context of this alliance, the organization has ignored a great amount of journalistic travesties exhibited by certain sections of the media; a painful swallowing deliberately mustered to accommodate human errors and human biases. But it seems sheer ignorance and poor professional tutelage have robbed certain media organizations every iota of remorse and conscience to appreciate and reciprocate our leniency and friendship with the media and our understanding of their professional pitfalls.
We have brushed aside and disregarded media mischief for too long. Today, we would not allow the current instant come to pass without comments. And we are responding not because we have the luxury of time; we have called you here today to react because the instant case has far-reaching connation; it has roots in attacks on democracy and civil liberty.
Many of you might not have seen the story in the obscure Labor Journal . And you might not have seen it because, I understand, the ironically named Journal hardly worth the time of any decent reader. But there was a fantasy called “story” written by its apparently non-journalist writers, captioned In Smile FM Crisis: LDI Linked To $30,000 Fraud.
The story in all its limitations, and considering the canons of journalism, is a product of mischief, prejudice, malice and blackmailing. And, let me make it clear here that these descriptions are far from the usual platitudes of rejoinder; they are carefully and deliberately selected to unveil the nefarious nature of The Labor Journal . We will provide the naked proof for your own discernment.
First, as a source of blackmailing and mischief, it was the Editor-In-Chief of the so-called Labor Journal, George Chepoyee, who ran to my office to exhibit a copy of the publication. As a demonstration of the fact that LDI was deliberately targeted by the management, and knowing that their paper is obscure in the Liberian media landscape, George entered our offices and flaunted a copy to LDI staff, saying, “Here is your copy; read and see how we dealt with you sufficiently.” He turned his back and left in our hands the trash, the basket of grammatical errors, some of which are underlined, and a tissue of lies and falsehood.
Secondly, you will all remember the row between the Liberia Democratic Institue and the local authority of Grand Gedeh County headed by Superintendent Bailey. While pursuing its mandate of building the democratic and civil consciousness of rural Liberians, the LDI was arbitrarily banned by the Grand Gedeh authority. The doors of the LDI were threatened with closure and staff given ultimatum to leave the county. From what you will notice, there is a clear link between the publication and an attempt by the local authority of Grand Gedeh to resurrect a row long considered liquated.
Without making any insinuation, we want you to take a look at Volume #2 No. 48, Tuesday, March 18-24, 2008 edition of The Labor Journal. The malicious conspiracy, which underpinned the anti-LDI article, is empirically laid bare at the back page of the newspaper.
To Enhance Agro In G-Gedeh: Supt. Bailey Calls For Road Rebuilding – Triangle Square , American Library Projects Ongoing. That is the second lead headline on the paper's back page, before the LDI vilification article followed third.
Even before The Labor Journal manufactured its claims in the article against LDI, it devoted a couple of paragraphs to exalt moves allegedly being made by Supt.Bailey to restore calm and sanity at the community radio, called Smile Radio in Zwedru City . It is after these Bailey-adored paragraphs that the paper turned its malicious sword against the LDI.
Amongst other things, the paper alleges: “ Now, the superintendent, in consultation with stakeholders from what is known as the nine zones of the county, has constituted an independent team to probe the Smile FM crisis and sources closed to the team has [sic] confided with [sic] The Labor Journal during our recent tour of Grand Gedeh County that the Liberia Democratic Institue (LDI), headed by Mr. Dan Sayeh [sic], has been heavily responsible for fermenting [sic] the confusion [sic] and was well embroiled in a major financial fraud at the station.
As if that run-on sentence above was not sufficient to satisfy its nefarious fabrication of falsehood, The Labor Journal continued: “ However, Sayeh's man stationed in Zwedru Otis Jolo, according to our independent investigation, had been engaged in using the station facilities to propagate anti-government messages and refused to pay for daily airtime. Up to the commencement of the ongoing probe, station sources [sic] say LDI was indebted in the tune of L$30,000 for announcements, releases, talk shows, etc. and had flatly refused to make settlement.”
Before leafing through the travesties and cowardly motives of the publication, let's be quick to state here that we have receipts on exhibition to negate and contradict the paper's claims that LDI is indebted to Smile FM radio. In fact, both the LDI and the station's management know that LDI's off-front payment for airtime was not exhausted before the organization's operations were disrupted by the Grand Gedeh local authority. So, clearly, it is the station that owes LDI.
For your information, the LDI and Smile FM have had good working relations; and these relations are based on the fact that both institutions represent the voice of the people; both institutions represent icon of democracy and civil liberties in that part of the country; we, therefore, represent threats to tyranny and arbitrary rule. For those who have magnetic memories, you would remember that Smile FM was recently raided and banned by the local authority only to be promptly reopened following sustained national and international pressure on the force of evil.
Thirdly, all cross-checks of the allegation and falsehood by the newspaper show that all the sources cited in the story are self-created. And anyone can also cross-check. Several members of the interim board reportedly instituted by Supt. Bailey to settle the dispute at Smile FM could not corroborate the fabrication of lies as published by The Labor Journal . We call a number of the Board's members, but they expressed shock and dismal over the publications. Supt. Bailey himself told us he was not aware. And the station's management, which receipted payments from LDI's airtime activities, also dismissed the publications. The question is, Whence comes the Labor Journal falsehood.
From all indications, The Labor Journal has enlisted itself on the side of darkness to confront the Forces of Good. It is a pity that while the larger Liberian society and international sources are fighting tooth and nail to uproot the tentacles of despotism and animate the long-marginalized people of Liberia, it is unfortunate that some sections of the Liberian media, including trash called The Labor Journal, would choose to ally with falsehood and despotism at the painful expense of Liberia's nascent democracy.
By insinuating without citing a source that the LDI is “fermenting” [misusing fomenting], confusion and that the LDI has been using Smile FM to propagate anti-government messages, the Labor Journal has exposed itself as a paid agent of the local authority of Grand Gedeh. And we say this because these are exactly the same phrases and allegations trumpeted by the local authority as being the cause for its closure of LDI offices in Grand Gedeh.
But whether the likes of Labor Journal like it or not, whether they serve as mouthpiece of anti-democratic elements, using their professionally filthy pages to propagate falsehoods, one thing is clear: Democracy, civil liberty and freedom for which scores of Liberians have spared lives, blood and tears will sprout unabated and mature to greater heights without fail. The LDI will work with other democratic forces in this country and abroad to ensure that the budding fervor of civic consciousness hovering over the nation will not be quenched by reckless journalism and the malicious vilification campaigns by the likes of Labor Journal and its paymasters.
Though many of you know that the professionally inept writers of Labor Journal do not worth the time and space spent for this clarification, it is at times necessary to point out the path of evil because history would not forgive us if we allowed such treachery and distortion of facts to enter its pages. However grammatically fraught and journalistically clumsy the article, we thought to make a few clarifications for the sake of historical complications that might emerge if such a trash and blackmail were not contradicted.