The Standard newspaper has rubbished APRC’s claim that the paper’s front page lead story captioned “APRC confirms coalition talks with NPP” was fake news. 

The paper’s editor Lamin Cham said the story which was published yesterday was “accurate” and “a true record of the interview” APRC official Dodou Jah granted to his reporter Omar Bah.

“The Standard has a full recording of the interview and we challenge Mr Dodou Jah or anyone to come forward with a denial that he did not say what we reported,” Mr. Cham said. 

“It must be said however that Mr Jah did not raise any objection and accepted he has no trouble with the entire story except perhaps according to him, the headline is being wrongly interpreted as meaning they, the two parties, are into a coalition already and also our choice of pictures.”

Senior reporter Omar Bah, the author of the story, told Gambiana: “This is very clear, the interview I had with Dodou Jah is very clear. 

“What he told me, is what I wrote on the paper, is that NPP is engaging the former ruling party [APRC] to form an alliance with them.

“And the truth behind everything in the whole episode of this trick of APRC…has always been from the beginning that they are not happy with the pictures being used on the story and also the headline. 

“Dodou Jah spoke to me personally on three to four occasions yesterday, he spoke to Lamin Cham as well. Cham asked him: do you have any problem with story? He said no, everything in the story is correct except the headline.”  

Mr. Bah expressed his disappointment in Jah saying “it’s really disappointing and he is really fond of doing that and this is not the first time, he has done it to The Point and The Voice (newspapers).”