Redemption's End

In Ghana, President Kwame Nkrumah's favorite newspapers are the Ghanaian Times and the Evening News. They should be. They never fail to address him as Osagyefo (Redeemer), the title that most tickles Nkrumah's vanity. They print his speeches and praise his every deed with a loyalty--firmly cemented by $8,000,000 in government subsidies--that leaves very little room for anything else, particularly news. By rights, such a love match ought to endure as long as the government treasury. But last week, to the consternation of the Times and the News, the Osagyefo cut them off without a dime.

Just Plain Doctor. The reason for Nkrumah's move was not displeasure but competition. Even in Ghana, readers prefer news to propaganda, and even in Nkrumah's Ghana, readers still have a choice. The Daily Graphic, which is owned by London's Daily Mirror group, almost never calls Nkrumah Osagyefo; he is usually "the President" or "Dr. Nkrumah"--a reference to his honorary LL.D. from Pennsylvania's Lincoln University. Open criticism of Nkrumah is not healthy in Ghana, but when the Graphic disapproves of the presidential policies, it simply runs no editorial column at all--a conspicuous omission that thunderously makes the point. And though it is chary of reporting foreign gibes at Nkrumah, the Graphic fills its columns with news supplied by Britain's Reuters and by its own staff, the ablest in Ghana.

Sated with the sycophancy of the Times and the News, Ghanaians have turned in droves to the unsubsidized Graphic. Last year alone, Times circulation dwindled from 20,000 to 10,000; the News, which hit a peak of 25,000 in 1958, is now down to only 4,000. In contrast, Graphic circulation is climbing steadily, now stands at 88,522. The Graphic typically carries eight times as much advertising as the Times, nearly 70 times as much as the News.

Keep in Tune. Last week, already pinched for money to support his vaunted aid programs to other African nations, Nkrumah bluntly ordered the Times and the News to pay their own way or perish. Worse yet, Accra rumor had it that Nkrumah intended to let both papers die and to replace them in a year or so with a less propagandistic daily printed in the $4,500,000 printing plant that the East Germans have promised to build for him near Accra. In undisguised anguish, the Times and News printed appeals to their declining readership. "Don't ever forget the debt you owe to this gallant paper," implored the News. "To forget it is to betray yourself and Africa. Read the valiant Evening News and keep yourself in perfect tune with the spirit of militant fighting Africa." But there was no evidence that anyone was listening--least of all the Osagyefo.

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