It is shocking – the level of vicious attacks, vilification and smearing that takes place in some sections of our local media. Interestingly some of these spurious writings have been aimed at Politico or its journalists. If we need to say this again, here it is: WE WILL NEVER RESPOND TO THEM because they are a distraction to a serious cause of addressing those things affecting the welfare of our state and our people be they educated or uneducated, compromised or not, the rulers or the ruled.
This is why we have adopted a policy not to publish syndicated articles. And we urge all who publish articles written or published by our newspaper to do the most basic thing – credit Politico. In the last one week, a good number of newspapers reproduced some of our articles and most did not bother to credit us.
Back to the vexed issue of the thinly veiled harassment or intimidation … if anyone thinks they can cow us they are mistaking. If they believe they can buy us over they are being foolish. If they imagine they can pay others to attack and vilify us hence force us to subservience they are hallucinating. Even if they decide not to give us advertisement we will not be dampened. We will survive.
We promise we will NEVER be reckless in our trade – journalism. We know how to practice and we will respect the rules. We vow. No one working for Politico has been found wanting in line of duty. This record we will always guard jealously and we assure we cannot be succumbed.
We believe in the words of the Lebanese-American poet and writer, Khalil Gibran, when he said, “Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.” We will add that we do not worship money so we do not take bribe from corrupt politicians or corporate bodies to shape our thinking. Like Sekou Toure said, “We prefer poverty in freedom to wealth in slavery”. If some decide to hate us and seek to vilify us because of our stance in the interest of the motherland, they have only just started because we will not relent. And we will continue to ignore them. We will continue to strive for truth and stand for right even if at our expense but not at the people’s
