A Nigerian newspaper, Premium Times had announced of its plan to sue Nigerian Dana Air Limited and some Nigerian publications over an alleged “fake news” targeted at the airline.
Some newspapers, especially Blueprint and Daily Nigerian, had reported on November 4 or thereabouts that Dana Airline Limited was banned by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA.
This was made known to journalists on Sunday, November 10, 2019, by Idris Akinbajo, the managing director of Premium Times, saying that the news platforms later published disclaimers saying that their reports were false and had been pulled down from their websites.
They further claimed that they sourced the stories from Premium Times website.
Dana Airline Limited later engaged in communications alleging that Premium Times published falsehood about it on November 4 and defamed its brand. It also threatened to take legal actions against our newspaper.
“We hereby state without equivocation that Premium Times never published the said news report or any such content about Dana Air on the aforementioned date or thereabouts,” a statement by the newspaper read.
“We published the report Dana and the newspapers cited on June 5, 2012, (over seven years ago) when the airline was grounded by the regulator after a crash that killed all 146 passengers and seven crew members on board.
“We DID NOT republish or redistribute the article since then. It is unclear why the newspapers dug into our archive to source a seven-year-old story for republication.
“We have therefore resolved to sue Dana Air and the concerned publications for bringing the name of our newspaper into disrepute.
“We expect Dana Airline, Blueprint and Daily Nigerian to provide evidence that PREMIUM TIMES republished or recirculated the said report after it was duly published in June 2012.
Premium Times restates its commitment to the quest for truth and justice through the practice of ethical journalism. We appeal to Nigerians to ignore the desperate attempts by some mischief makers to smear our newspaper.
