(CEMESP/IFEX) – Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has angrily attacked Liberian journalists, describing some of them as “check-book journalists”. Sirleaf unleashed the attack on journalists when she delivered the commencement address at the United Methodist University on 23 August 2006. Addressing the graduating class of the university, Madam Sirleaf said Liberian journalists have replaced sensitization […]
(CEMESP/IFEX) – Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has angrily attacked Liberian journalists, describing some of them as “check-book journalists”.
Sirleaf unleashed the attack on journalists when she delivered the commencement address at the United Methodist University on 23 August 2006. Addressing the graduating class of the university, Madam Sirleaf said Liberian journalists have replaced sensitization with sensationalism and, according to her, in some instances outright lies and half-truths are preferred to accuracy and truth.
The president, who called for a reform in Liberia’s media landscape, stated that good journalism ethics have been substituted for blackmail and lies.
But in a reaction to Sirleaf, Press Union of Liberia Secretary General Alphonsus Zeon described the president’s statement as a damaging indictment on the local media.
Mr. Zeon said Sirleaf’s statement was prompted by her frustration over the media’s widespread objective reportage of her government’s latest attempt to create a monopoly in the industry of Liberia’s staple food, rice.
The media had criticized recent pronouncements by the Liberian government restricting the importation of rice in Liberia to a group called SinkorTrading. The local media reports have been critical of the government’s decision to grant the exclusive right to import rice to Liberia to a single company which many believe has connections to Sirleaf.
