General News of Sunday, 27 May 2018
Source: Myjoyonline.com
2018-05-27
Kweku Baako, Managing Editor of the New Crusading Guide newspaper
Editor in Chief of the New Crusading Guide Newspaper Malik Kweku Baako Jnr says the Anas project is only a trap for people who do not have integrity.
Why will you be trapped? It doesn’t have to happen. Integrity is your armor. If you have integrity and entrusted with public service that must come with integrity I don’t see how you can seek integrity in the fact that you were trapped,” he said.
He was speaking on Joy FM’s news analysis programme, Saturday on the latest Anas investigation on Ghana football in which the FA president is alleged to be using the name of the president and vice president of Ghana to solicit for money from prospective investors.
Having watched excerpts of the video, the president reported the matter to the police CID who have since arrested and charged the FA boss with
One Deputy Roads Minister Anthony Karbo whose name was also mentioned in the video by Nyantakyi as being a facilitator in this influence peddling business has also been invited by the police to assist with the investigation.
There have suggestions the Anas brand of investigative journalism is self-serving, counterproductive and only meant to trap his victims.
But Kweku Baaku Jnr insisted that is not the case.
Citing the investigation on Ghana’s judiciary as a typical example, Mr Baako said judges as a matter of principle are not supposed to have any communication whatsoever with the people whose cases they presiding over in court.
Once a judge agrees to meet with a party in a case, he has already flouted the rules of engagement and there can be no issue of entrapment, Baako averred.
He explained the Anas project is only activated in cases where honest straightforward means of getting information will not get him the right information.
Quoting the GJA code of ethics, and other regulations that guide the practice of journalism in Ghana, Mr. Baako said using subterfuge methods are permissible when the public interest is overriding.
“The question an undercover journalist will ask himself before he proceeds if I apply the conventional methods, straightforward interviews, will I get the results I am getting. If no, then you go for these exceptions,” he said.