>From: [log in to unmask]
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: [Fwd: Liberian  Editor Resigns Over  alleged Censorship Scandal-
>         Veteran      Journalist  Kenneth Y  Best on the spot  light!!!!!]
>Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2005 15:39:30 -0700 (PDT)
>
>---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
>
>Liberian Observer online newspaper, Editor Rodney Seih, has resigned with
>immediate effect following  media censorship, the AllGambian can reveal.
>Mr.Sey, a former BBC Banjul correspondent in a statement Friday says,  his
>action to quit the Observer was purely based on ethical reasons, as he
>hinted about internal censorship within the newspaper.
>
>Mr.Sey who had fallen out with his uncle, veteran journalist Kenneth Y
>Best, proprietor of the Liberian Observer, gave a comprehensive account
>about the circumstances leading to his abrupt resignation.   He  exposed
>alleged attempts made by Mr.Best to down play a  corruption story,
>affecting the  Liberian embassy in the United States and its  Ambassador
>Charles A. Minor,  who was indicted by Liberia's  AUDITOR GENERAL’S REPORT
>for alleged financial impropriety.
>
>Mr.Best, also the former Banjul Daily Observer newspaper proprietor,  had
>not yet publicly reacted to the censorship charges made against him by his
>former colleague Rodney Seih, who is widely described as a principled,
>dedicated and fearless journalist.  Below is   Mr.Sey's letter sent to
>AllGambian Editor Pa Nderry M'Bai.
>
>
>Signing Off: Observer Online Editor Calls it Quits Over Ambassador Minor
>Scandal
>
>August 26, 2005
>Dear Readers,
>
>
>A little over nine months ago, I accepted an invitation from my uncle, Mr.
>Kenneth Y. Best to help him begin the campaign to re-launch the Daily
>Observer.
>The goal was to produce a first class online forum, replica of the
>Observer of
>old, where the people could freely express their views without fear,
>intimidation or threats-thus paving the way for the Daily Observer on the
>ground in Monrovia.
>
>I took up this challenge solely on a volunteer basis, utilizing every bone
>in my
>body and breadth of my life, to ensure that the paper’s long-standing
>reputation
>remain in tact and in the process help restore and revamp the credibility
>of journalism in my beloved Liberia.
>
>Besides being my uncle, Mr. Best has always been my idol,  a friend and
>the long-lost father I never had. It is in this light, that I regret to
>inform
>  you
>all that I have decided to step down as editor-in-chief of the online
>Daily Observer due to editorial differences with Mr. Best.
>
>I first  joined Mr. Best in The Gambia in 1992 as a sports editor/reporter
>for
>the Gambia Daily Observer. As a young lad I, like most of you was very
>proud of
>the Observer, so proud that during my elementary school days, I
>volunteered to
>sell the newspapers on the streets of Monrovia and my neighborhood in
>Paynesville after school. It was something, I did with pride.
>I remembered the many days the Observer was shut down and  I would go
>without an
>after-school job. I even help the Best family sell cookies and bread
>during one
>of the longest closure under the Samuel Doe regime.
>I love Mr. Best to death and would do anything to support him and his
>family. While in The Gambia I was fortunate to land a job as a reporter
>for the British
>Broadcasting Corporation, the BBC.
>
>Things were going fine for the Observer until Yahya Jammeh and his forces
>seized
>power from Sir Dawda Jawara who had ruled the Gambia since independence.
>In just
>over a few months the new government had begun to show the
>sign-of-the-times that had corrupted previous rulers before them on the
>African continent. When the Observer began to reflect the sentiments of
>Gambians, the military junta became uncomfortable. Following the arrest of
>Mr. Best I called the BBC Focus on African and informed them of what had
>occurred. I told them I could give them the information, but I was afraid
>to do a two-way interview for fear
>that I may become a target. The producers insisted that they would prefer
>the interview and I concurred. Following the airing of the interview,
>Jammeh’s plain-clothes soldiers came after me. I spent two weeks in hiding
>before fleeing to London.
>I  spent a few months in London contemplating my next move, before finally
>deciding to settle in the United States.
>Over the years I have successful managed to hone my journalism skills
>through education and my work with several major dailies in the United
>States. My work with the Observer was more of a moonlighting one. Besides
>serving as Editor, I am also a part-owner in the online publication. It
>takes a lot of work, sleepless nights and dedication and devotion to come
>up
>with what you all have come to love and appreciate.
> >From James Yarclay to J.D. Slanger, from David Johnson to Charles Minor,
>the
>team of dedicated reporters, mostly volunteers worked hard to produce and
>present stories that we felt were factual, credible and in all cases
>supported
>by supporting documents and proof to back them up. Not once have we posted
>a story on this website that was not supported by documentary evidence. In
>the process of exposing the flaws, the good, the bad and the ugly of many
>of our fellow Liberians and political leaders, we have been accused from
>all sides of
>being unfair and partial, especially when it involves someone they like or
>support.
>
>I have never hidden any letters, opinion piece or commentary that was
>critical
>of the Observer, of me or of any member of our staff. I’ve always strived
>to present all sides of the story before posting on the web.
>The Ellen Saga
>
>A few weeks ago, I received an information that Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was
>in possession of an American citizenship. Thankfully, Mrs. Sirleaf was in
>the U.S.
>at the time. I contacted her brother Mr. Abe Johnson and told him what I
>had in
>my possession. Mr. Johnson informed me that he was on his way to pick up
>Mrs. Sirleaf up and would get back to me in about 30 minutes. To this day,
>I haven’t
>heard from Mr. Johnson.
>
>I received a phone call from Mr. Best the following morning informing me
>that Mrs. Sirleaf had called him to say that if we ran the story it would
>cause the
>campaign to backpedal a bit because of the controversy. Neither Mr. Best
>or anyone from Ellen’s camp answered my inquiries about whether or not
>Ellen was a
>citizen.
>
>The story we carried was not about Ellen’s citizenship, it was a follow-up
>to a
>USA Today story which stated that a candidate for the presidency of
>Liberia resided in the Virginia area. An investigation by the Observer
>discovered that
>only three persons in the race resided or had residence in that area. John
>Morlu, Charles Brumskine and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.
>
>I informed Mr. Best that as much as I respected Mrs. Sirleaf, the Observer
>was
>not a member of her public relations staff and suggested that it should
>not be
>our concern whether the story caused her to back track- that should be the
>problem of her public relations team. All she had to tell me was whether
>she was a citizen or not. All I could gather from her camp was that she
>had a permanent residency  card which she had surrendered to the United
>Nations in 1992.
>
>My thinking was that it would not be fair to the candidacy of Mr. George
>Weah if
>we did not raise questions about a story that said three candidates in the
>race
>for the Liberian presidency resided in the Virginia area. We had
>rigorously stirred a debate regarding Mr. Weah’s citizenship so I felt we
>had to do the same for Ellen, Brumskine and Morlu. Of the three, only Mr.
>Morlu was able to come forward and show the Observer a copy of his green
>card. I know of no journalist in the world who would have such information
>and not raise questions
>about it. These are the kinds of stories that made the Observer famous
>over the
>years.
>
>Following the story, the Ellen camp still failed to answer the questions
>raised,
>but instead resorted to a personal attacks on my credibility. In my
>continued effort to promote transparency, I published their news
>release-unedited. Ironically, the first major story the Observer carried
>on its website involved a
>scandal which has now led to my reason for leaving.
>The Charles Minor Scandal
>Ambassador Charles Minor called the Observer in January to say that his
>employees were in engaged in corruption at the Liberian embassy in
>Washington,
>D.C. The diplomat informed the Observer that he was shutting down the
>consulate
>section until pending an investigation.
>A team of investigators was sent to probe Mr. Minor's claims, not to CLEAR
>HIM,
>or EXONERATE HIM.
>I'll get to that later.
>Reporter Sidiki Trawally and I received documents from the audit based on
>the Inspector General's findings. We were fully aware of the friction
>between Ambassador Minor and Foreign Minister Yahya Nimely. It is no
>secret that Minor
>and Nimely do not see eye to eye and everyone knows that the ambassador
>has the
>support of Gyude Bryant and has been at loggerheads with Nimely.
>It is in this light that we made several efforts to contact ambassador
>Minor before going with the story. We even asked Mr. Best to talk to his
>friend, the
>ambassador about the report. I personally told Mr. Best that we had in our
>possession a copy of the audit in which the foreign minister asked
>Ambassador Minor to account for some $300,000 he allegedly received from
>NTGL chairman Gyude Bryant. We never accused Minor of stealing, we only
>said the audit pointed to him and Bryant.
>Reporter Trawally and I even tried to call the ambassador on his cell
>phone and
>left several detailed messages explaining the magnitude of the minister's
>claims. The messages were not "Ambassador, this is the Observer, please
>called
>back."  It explained what we had in our possession.
>We even contacted Mr. Samuel Z. Abou, who is Minor's point press man at
>the embassy. Instead of answering the concerns raised in the Inspector
>General's report, Mr. Abou tried to convince us to kill the story. It was
>at that point that we decided that the embassy may be trying to hide
>something and so we ran with the story.
>Two days later, we learnt that Ambassador Minor and his wife had gone to
>Mr. Best's residence in Silver Spring, Maryland and threatened to sue the
>Observer
>if the story was not retracted.
>It was during that confrontation that the ambassador finally presented Mr.
>Best
>with a copy of the auditor general's findings which supported his concerns
>about corruption at the embassy.
>Mr. Best instructed me to immediately come out with a story and headline
>to say
>"Auditor General's Report Exonerates Minor".
>However, after reporter Sidiki Trawally, Observer Project co-ordinator
>Abraham
>Walker and I read through the report we could not find any instance where
>the Auditor General report EXONERATED or CLEARED the ambassador.
>How could we run a headline that says exoneration when it was not stated
>in the
>report. We were even instructed to take the word SCANDAL from the stories
>on the website.
>We decided that the only way to solve this issue was come out with a story
>that
>said ONE AUDIT, TWO FINDINGS, which pretty much summed the scandal up. We
>have two auditors, one representing Gyude Bryant, the auditor general and
>the
>other representing the foreign minister or Liberia. However, we were being
>told
>to delete any reference to the inspector general because his voice did not
>count and only go with the auditor general's finding.
>One Audit, Two Findings
>I refused to go along with this plan because it meant taking sides. On
>Monday morning we came up with the headline One Audit, Two Findings as
>well
>as a story headlined: Audit Supports ambassador's fears about Corruption
>at the
>Liberian Embassy.  We also carried a letter written by Bryant's Economic
>Advisor, Harry Greaves, who obviously had not known that we had contacted
>the ambassador to no avail, criticizing our previous story on the matter.
>We carried a reaction from the Liberian embassy demanding a retraction. as
>well as
>an editorial explaining how this story unfolded.
>Mr. Best insisted that because we did not use the word 'Exoneration' or
>'Clear'
>then we did not do the ambassador justice. But this audit was never about
>exonerating the ambassador, it was about finding out whether  or not
>corruption
>was there. It so happens that a letter from Nimely asking the ambassador
>to account for the money showed up  in the report. I have also been
>chastised for
>an editor's note under the Liberian Embassy Reacts that said: We Stand By
>Our Story.
>I wrote Mr. Best and the rest of the Observer staff informing them that I
>was not in the favor of any report that would 'EXONERATE' a government
>official and
>'TARNISH'  the good image of my reporter Sidiki Trawally and I. I Defend
>our story and will continue to do so until the day I ambassador Minor
>accounts for
>the money sent by Bryant or until I die.
>Mr. Best decided to go ahead and post a story without a byline exonerating
>the
>ambassador.
>I really wish we hadn't departed on this note, but it is something which I
>have
>to do, for my credibility and to protect what I've fought so hard to
>create. All I ever wanted was to protect the Observer reputation, if doing
>so was wrong,
>I wish to never again, be right in my journalistic life.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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