NEWS
Liberian Editor Resigns Over alleged Censorship Scandal- Veteran Journalist
Kenneth Y Best on the spot light




By Pa Nderry M'bai


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August 27, 2005
Liberian Observer online newspaper, Editor Rodney Seih, has resigned with
immediate effect following media censorship, the AllGambian can reveal. Mr.
Seih, 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. Seih 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. Seih'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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