Liberia: In Chris Toe Vs. Rodney Sieh - Daily Observer's Position Raises Journalistic Ethical Questions

opinion

On Thursday, September 4, 2013, the management of the Liberian Observer Corporation, publisher of the Daily Observer Newspaper, took a rare position never before seen in Liberian press history. Its venoms, this time, were not directed at a dictatorial government as in the past, but against one of its own, jailed editor Rodney Sieh who publishes the rival FrontPage Africa Newspaper. In an editorial entitled "A Publisher's Moment of Truth," the paper in her opening paragraphs observed it "has endeavored to stay out of the ongoing libel saga between Rodney Sieh and former Agricultural Minister J. Christopher Toe" out of apparent fear that people might view it as taking side or "backing a relative."

The Observer is owned and published by Rodney Sieh's uncle, veteran Liberian journalist Kenneth Yarkpawolo Best. And it is also the same Observer which over the years groomed many Liberian reporters (including the jailed editor) into journalism. That means, all things put aside, publisher Sieh is an in-house child besides operating a rival paper. Further, there is a striking component to the Kenneth Best-Rodney Sieh family relation beyond uncle-nephew-rival newspapers tie. The two are reported to share paternity of some sort to celebrated Liberian journalist, late Albert Porte. That should perhaps explain why aggressive reporting-journalism forms part of the Best-Sieh family's DNA.

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