Daily Times apologises to JB, retracts false story
Malawi’s giant newspaper company Times Group has apologised to President Joyce Banda on what one of its titles, Daily Times published which quoted the Head of State saying the law enforcement agencies recently arrested a public servant trying to loot from State coffers K400 millions.
The ruling People’s Party (PP) spokesman Ken Msonda dismissed the story as clear distortion of facts and that the President never said as quoted.
Msonda said the story was defamatory and demanded an apology from the publication.
On Good Friday, The Daily Times carried an apology on its front page.
“We have learnt however that President Banda said actually said K4 million as the amount of the money government stopped from being stolen,” an apology by Editor of Daily Times reads.
It added: “ We therefore sincerely apologise to the President and our readers for the error and retract the story.”
Daily Times sister paper the Malawi News recently also offered an apology to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair over a story they carried that ‘Malawians Pay for Blair’, admitting it was inaccurate and false reporting.
The weekly in an apology published on its front page said “it has come to our attention that the work Mr Tony Blair’s African Governance Initiative (AGI) in Malawi was part of outs charitable work. Quite separate from other paid for advisory services that AGI offers to the governments and corporations.”
When the paper reported AGI received payments from the Government of Malawi, the office of Blair refuted the “false accusations”.
