Dida Halake, the newly appointed Editor-In-Chief of the Daily Observer has revealed that his intention is to guide the young staff of the Daily Observer to do their best and produce the best daily paper in the country.

Editor-In-Chief Halake made these remarks in a telephone interview with this paper, saying the Observer Company will work hand-in-glove with the Gambia Press Union (GPU) and sister newspapers in the country.

“We will work with all other newspapers cordially as Chairman.  In The Gambia, we have a democracy with flowing newspapers and in any democratic country; there is room for every body.  Under President Jammeh’s government, the opposition newspapers have always excited and thriven (we have 4 now). As Chairman Mao once said, ‘let a thousand flowers boom’. The Gambia has held free and fair elections, free media and perhaps we can all work together fraternally”, Mr Halake said.

Mr Halake who is currently in the United Kingdom, said the Daily Observer is his priority, and will strive hard to boost-up the morale of the staff, noting that he wants a happy environment at the Observer. “I am just an anchor with hopefully a wise head.  The young staffs are the strong arms and legs of the Daily Observer.

 So, I hope I can guide them to do their best and produce the country’s number one paper and I thanked everybody for given me the opportunity.  I am honoured and humbled”, he remarked.

He pointed out that for one to be a good journalist, you must get good education first, revealing that he has seen people calling themselves journalist who can hardly write good English.  He said “if you go into journalism uneducated, you make fool of yourself.

Get an education, be matured, be responsible and you will become a good responsible journalist. Journalism is a heavy weapon.  The media is a dangerous weapon, just look at Rwanda’s genocide.

No responsible society leaves dangerous weapons in the hands of immature children, which is why the GPU have started an important output to turn out well-trained media practitioners to become responsible journalists in society to enable them to carry out their social responsibilities effectively and efficiently.

In this respect, Dida said, the Daily Observer will develop an in-house training for its journalists and hope that “we can work with the GPU and other media houses to train our journalists.