Freddie Blay
Former National Chairman of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), Freddie Worsemao Blay, has chastised the Multimedia Group for unprofessionally “chopping and editing” portions of an interview he granted them, consequently creating the wrong impression about his statement.
The former Member of Parliament for Ellembelle is not particularly happy that the media house in editing the over 40-minute interview he granted them on February 26, 2024, deliberately highlighted and maintained an error he made by mentioning the wrong political party’s name.
A 22-second video making rounds on social media sees the NPP stalwart urging the public to vote to maintain the NPP in the 2024 general election.
He, however, at the near end of the video said the NPP should not be given the chance to come back to power because they would mess up the economy, when he clearly meant the NDC, per the preceding lines.
“This is a blessed country, this is a country that we love each other. We don’t have too many problems and for that reason let’s work together towards ensuring that NPP stays in power – that doesn’t give the opportunity for the NPP [should have been NDC], they would mess up the economy when given that opportunity, that’s all I can say,” he told the interviewer.
But Mr. Blay, in a letter to the Managing Director of Multimedia Group, expressed his displeasure about the handling of the interview and the manner in which the interview was edited to create the wrong impression.
The interview followed what Mr. Blay described as “prolonged and repeated request” from Multimedia Group for him to grant an interview on his personal life and political career.”
“It has since been brought to my attention that a video extract from this interview is being widely circulated on multiple social media platforms and political arenas, where your stations, producers and editors, have gone out of their way to chop and edit the content from this interview to create a very mischievous and negative impression on my good self from a portion of the interview where I mentioned the wrong political party’s name when clearly referring to the other,” the letter said.
It points out that, “Any discerning and good intended journalist would easily recognise the faux pas and would have corrected the mistake or omit it from the final edit.”
The letter said it would seem clear, however, that the team that conducted this interview went out of their way to not only highlight the obvious error, “but went further to edit in other parts of the lengthy interview to create the very opposite impression to the point I was making.”
“In this era of fake news being abundant on social media, I believe it goes without saying that the actions of your team shed a very poor and distasteful light on your seasoned organisation.”
It continued that, “Being one of the market leaders in this profession, adherence to sound and honest journalism is paramount, making it more disappointing that your station will knowingly partake in soundbite clickbait journalism.”
Mr. Blay concludes that he would deem it appropriate that the management of Multimedia Group in the very least, calls to order the team that conducted the interview and does the needful to correct the clearly wrong impression they sought to create in the public eye.
The correspondence has been copied to the National Media Commission.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak