Daily Graphic’s neutrality exemplary — TUC boss

The Secretary-General of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Dr Anthony Yaw Baah, has advised the Daily Graphic and its publisher, the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL) to jealously guard its principle of neutrality in the course of news gathering and dissemination.

He stated that the neutral stance of the company and its flagship publication, the Daily Graphic, on politics and political issues was exemplary and another key attribute that sustained the business.

Professional integrity

He gave the advice yesterday when he took his turn as the Guest Editor of the Daily Graphic.

He said the principle of neutrality also set the company and its brands apart from competition in the seven decades that it had existed.

70th anniversary

The Doctor of Economics and labour expert is the second high-profile personality to take the seat in the Guest Editor Series, initiated as part of activities to mark the 70th anniversary of the GCGL, which publishes the Daily Graphic, five newspapers and two online news portals.

The company’s news products are The Mirror, the Graphic Sports, the Graphic Showbiz, the Junior Graphic and the Graphic Business, as well as the Graphic NewsPlus and the Graphic Online.

Professional integrity

Dr Baah also commended the company for maintaining professional integrity, which he said “has been intact,” while keeping a blend of experienced human resource that cut across generations.

He said that blend promoted a cross-fertilisation of ideas and underlined why the company was great.

“This is very interesting to me, probably the most interesting thing I have ever done. I am impressed to see around the table quite a number of women and relatively young people mixed up with mature people, and I can easily see why Graphic is great,” he declared.

Dr Baah posited that the mix was good as the ideas would come from both the mature and young people, who were rising.

As the company marches towards another 70 years, the economist and labour expert said those principles would come in handy and relevant to the sustenance of the business, the maintenance of the respect and the clout that the company had earned for itself over the years.

Polarised society

On the need to remain neutral, Dr Baah stated that: “We live now in a very polarised society called Ghana, where half belongs to this party and the other half belongs to that party”.

“If you are a newspaper like Graphic and you do not remain neutral, you are finished,” he said during an interview session.

“Therefore, I will urge Graphic that going forward, you should keep that principle. You should be non-partisan and do not detract into any politics,” the TUC boss, who has been the leader of the largest labour union since 2016, said.

Role

As part of his role as the Guest Editor, Dr Baah chaired two editorial conferences yesterday — the morning conference, where the day’s (June 24) edition of the Daily Graphic was reviewed, and the afternoon conference, where the discussion and selection of stories were done for the following day’s production.

In a brief remark, he described the opportunity given him as an “honour” and commended the editorial team for a good work done.
Reviewing the paper, Dr Baah again.