GJA Probes Baby Ansaba�s Confessions

Journalist Baby Ansaba, who admitted fabricating news stories may soon face sanctions from the Ghana Journalists Association. The regulatory body referred confessions of fabrication by the journalist to its ethics and disciplinary council after a long meeting on Wednesday. Baby Ansaba has confessed to �cooking up� stories about the health status of then candidate Mills in order to project the then ruling NPP party. He accused ex-president Kufuor of not taking him along any of his about 180 presidential trips abroad in his eight-year stint in government, something President John Mills has done in a year. His utterances have sent shock waves through the journalism profession with some practitioners calling for his axing from the association. Others have attacked the regulatory body, GJA for not playing its supervisory role well enough. In an interview with Joy News, GJA president Ransford Tetteh admitted that the �confessions� from Baby Ansaba were worrying, more so when the profession is built around the principle of truth and fairness. He said the Association's members were shocked to hear a senior journalist of his standing make those confessions and hinted the disciplinary committee was yet to hear him for further action. He also noted it is within the right of any journalist to support any cause, but the principles and ethics of the profession must be upheld. Ransford Tetteh said the disciplinary council will soon come out with its sanctions on the journalist. ************************************************ Baby Ansaba: I Denounce My Unethical Past Journalist and Editor of New Punch newspaper, Ato Sam, also known as Baby Ansaba, on Wednesday made hair-raising revelations of how he has in the recent past published stories he knew were untrue in support of causes he believed in. But he says he has denounced that �regretful� and unethical past and will henceforth live true to the journalism profession. Those lies, he claimed, included publication ahead of the 2008 general elections that then candidate J.E.A. Mills was sick and had been hospitalised, and another, later on, that Mills had fallen flat (owing to weak health) on a political platform during a campaign rally. Speaking on Asempa FM, Baby Ansaba heaped praises on President Mills for counting him worthy to travel with him on an international tour, explaining that even the John Agyekum Kufuor-led New Patriotic Party, for which he crusaded to help keep it in power, did not as much as offer him a single trip on any of the president�s over 180 international tours. He said while some of the publications, aimed at undermining the National Democratic Congress party�s effort at winning power were pure fabrications, he and others who were similarly disposed, were sometimes misled because they were not offered the true reflection of certain situations. And when against his wildest expectations, the New Patriotic Party lost power to the NDC, he left the country to seek refuge in the United States of America, fearing persecution. Quoting the Apostle Paul in the Bible, he said he has repented from his childish ways, for if he acted childishly in the past, he is now wiser and will act as a grown up. He has, since travelling with President Mills to Trinidad and Tobago late last year along with other journalists, been the target of a barrage of criticisms, some of which claim he is a �stomach journalist� and �May weather friend�, but Ato Sam says those jealous of him will come to shame, because he did not only sing the praises of the NPP while in power, but he also cautioned them when necessary, and that he will continue to do.