The National Media Commission has ordered The Ghanaian Chronicle newspaper to apologise to the Foreign Minister, Alhaji Mohammed Mumuni, for publishing an unfair story about him. The NMC’s directive follows a complaint by Alhaji Mumuni who said a story in the February 18 edition of the newspaper defamed him. The paper carried a story sourced to an audit report on the finances of the National Vocational Training Institute. The audit report had been a subject of court case and controversy in the run up to Alhaji Mumuni’s vetting and subsequent confirmation as a minister. Even though the minister lost the court case in which he challenged the authenticity of the report, he insists the audit report is fake. He therefore felt unjustifiably maligned when the newspaper took extracts from the report and published them, warranting his filing a complaint to the NMC. The NMC in its ruling contends that since the paper published specific allegations against Alhaji Mumuni, journalistic ethics required that his response be included in the story to enable readers judge for themselves. The Chronicle’s statement that the minister denied the allegations, the NMC believes, failed to meet the requirement and therefore carried a story that lacked balance and fairness. The Commission, however rejected Alhaji Mumuni’s request for an undertaking from The Chronicle, to refrain from repeating or further publishing the assertions made in the story in question in the future. It said granting the request could serve as a yardstick to block journalistic enquiry into the activities of public officials. The commission said it was unable to determine the source of the audit report published by the newspaper because it required the exploration of the complex issues of parliamentary procedures and the Media Source Protection Rule. The Executive Secretary of the NMC, Mr. George Sarpong told Joy News he expects The Chronicle newspaper to render the apology in good time. He said all other media parishioners should take note that in the proper pursuit of their work, they could end up not being fair and balanced. Listen to excerpts of the interview in the attached audio. Story by Malik Abass Daabu/Myjoyonline.com