Note: the open letter/article below was first published in the Daily Observer, last thursday June 17. It is my understanding that Observer's newly-appointed Editorial Adviser Ngaing Thomas, has since responded to my comments. For a balnced coverage of opinion, it will be great if Mr. Thomas's rejoinder is posted on the L for public consumption. Could somebody on the L in possession of the said article, please do so? Dear Amadou Samba, by Cherno Baba Jallow in Detroit, USA. Solemn promise by your new Daily Observer Company management never to interfere with the the editorial independence of the Observer newspaper should be taken with a pinch of salt. It lacks contour and reality. Barely a week after your management came into office, Observer's News Editor Demba A. Jawo, one of The Gambia's most principled, objective journalists, was given the sack. You've not given any reasons why Jawo was fired. Hiding behind a veneer of managerial poetic justice, your managing director Sariang Ceesay, bereft of specificity, simply said the Daily Observer was undergoing "restructuring." So: Jawo had to be weeded out. Official policy seems to indicate that Jawo's unceremonious dismissal was the consequence of corporate infirmity. But reality points otherwise. Jawo's sacking was a cynical departure, on your part, from realism surrounding your much-vaunted promise to keep Observer's editorial independence intact. By sacking Jawo for no genuine reasons, but apparently for his acerbic opinions on the wrong policies of the APRC government and its lackeys, you've committed grave injustice to press freedom. Worse, you've presented us with the horrifying spectre of the imminence of draconian measures to whittle Observer's editorial independence and drag it into Stygian depths of unchartered self-censorship. Observer's future now rests on the bridle and saddle of managerial authoritarianism. Obscurantism. And determinism. Jawo has gone;Baba Galleh Jallow, too. In a span of one week, both the news editor and editor-in-chief respectively, saw their pivotal careers at the Observer quashed and sullied. Who's next? Your editorial board is now in disarray. Denied the collective wisdom and experience of these two hardworking editors and columnists, your newspaper is destined to experience a monumental depletion of skills, talents and editorial leadership. Perhaps, you need a serious reminder that the Observer under Kenneth Y. Best enjoyed a crescendo of journalistic credibility. From a modest beginning on Election Day in 1992 to the last day you acquired full ownership of the Daily Observer Company, the Observer continued to be an independent, indispensable voice in the vanguard of good governance and social change in The Gambia. The Observer augmented reading habits for a greater number of Gambians. It successfully chronicled the triumphs and failures, dilemmas and aspirations, new-fangled ideas and outmoded shibboleths, of our society. Best made the Observer champion the cause of democracy and free speech, set the pace for change, crusade against corruption, groom fledgling ideas, later gushing into the eddies of rational public opinion. Observer's success under Best was the height of untrammeled exchange of ideas and adroit productivity, of honest-thinking Gambians. Are you ready to break that tradition? Is it in your business interest, and, ethical values and beliefs, to see the Observer wallow into stunted journalistic growth? Metamorphose into reticence in the full view of unchecked authoritarianism? Governmental improprieties? Societal abrasiveness? You would think that because you command the will and wallet over the survival of the Daily Observer Company as a business entity, the Observer has now become your own private hacienda, subject to your whims and caprices, not to the dictates of unfettered ideas and opinions. Think again. The Observer, said Best in his last words before deportation, "is no longer my property, it is the property of the Gambian people." Best knew the Observer, a paper he had come to live with through thick and thin in both Liberia and The Gambia, had grown larger than he could ever have fathomed. The Observer had developed an innate tendency for invincibility and indispensability. Understandably, you're no Kenneth Best. But you can still learn from Best on the mechanics of newspaper operation. His journalistic creed was thus:report the facts without fear or favour;create a dialogue between people and people, government and people. The need for that in our country has never been greater, now. Our nation is undergoing traumatic political times. We came out of military rule none the wiser;tension and divisiveness continue to plague our political system. Flagrant human rights abuses abound. Government continues to be bigger, and out of sync with the miseries and concerns of the common man. It continues to be overtly sensitive and averse to dissent, thus stifling creativity and profundity of free political thinking, indispensable to the viability and survival of our society. And the need for uninhibited flow of information becomes ever more undiminished, given the intricacies, subterfuges and intemperance of the consequences of the actions of our political leadership. Our new crop of leaders, displaying varying degrees of legerdemain and unaccountability, has kept us uninformed and misinformed on matters of governance. Unenligthened leadership has not only frustrated the national collective to appraise the actions of our government, but has also churned out a bumper-crop of phantom policies and promises, aggravating rather than lessening, the coarsening of the affairs of governance. Where a government fails or refuses to be a ligthening rod for its citizens or acts despotically against them, then it becomes the sacred duty of a free press to provide voice to the voiceless, strength to the downtrodden, information to the uninformed. In the face of governmental dictatorship, a free press becomes the last bastion of hope - for the protection of freedoms and liberties of a helpless citizenry, for the exposure and censure of the recalcitrance and despotism of a brutish leadership, for the marshalling of ideas and opinions on societal realities. I conceptualize all this for your encompassing understanding to rise above any hackneyed proclivities to blend partisan politics with objective journalism. The two do not mix;they're at variance. Which is why you should draw a fine line between your patronage with the APRC regime, and, the conscience and conscientiousness inherent with the proprietorship of a free, independent newspaper like the Observer. If the conscience of good journalism will not appeal to you, atleast commercial profiteering will. Your buy-out of the Daily Observer Company is a business venture, and like every other business venture, you're motivated to maximize profits and stay in business. Of course, over the years, you have displayed considerable enterprise and flair. You're a shrewd and successful businessman, making great strides in entrepreneurial innovation. Such should be the central planks of your Mission Statement as the new publisher of the Observer: rejigging Observer's managerial inefficiencies, revamping its sagging finances, rewarding its hardworking yet frustrated, personnel, and rekindling its journalistic integrity. Here lies the line of demarcation. Editorial matters should be out of your purview. You're no journalist in the first place;so isn't your managing director. Therefore, any undue meddling into Observer's editorial independence will be counter-productive and inimical to press freedom. Jawo's sacking represents your nascent intrusion into the sacredness of Observer's editorial integrity. It's a bad start for your management. The collapse of the Observer will certainly be a great loss to Gambians, but it won't be the end of history. It will leave a vacuum to be filled by honest-thinking, principled-minded Gambians. Best saw the absence of a daily newspaper in The Gambia as a vacuum and he filled it. History continues.... In the meantime, we keep our eyes firmly fixed on Observer's shaky future. Well, wait: you have the means to keep the Observer intact. And alive. The decision is ultimately yours. The author is a former Daily Observer sub-editor and political columnist. He's currently a student of Economics and International Relations at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------