The Plateau Government says it will reposition its media outfit, the Plateau Publishing Corporation (PPC), publishers of The Nigeria Standard Newspapers.
The Commissioner for Information and Communication, Mr Dan Manjang said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Jos.
Manjang said that the government was doing everything possible to revive The Nigeria Standard by recruiting more staff and publish on daily basis.
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He observed that the newspaper had been the voice of the middle belt region which should be repositioned.
The commissioner stated that government intended to inject more fund into the corporation, noting that all the available vacancies would be advertised and filled up.
“The Nigeria standard has been doing the best that it can. We thank God that we have a new press machine, even though it was the past administration that acquired it, we are the ones that installed the new machine.
“We were not in office when the machine was bought but the cost of the machine called Cityline is between N200 million and N250 million.
“The machine is capable of printing in full colour 35,000 copies of newspapers in one hour.
“The machine is also capable of printing exercise books.
“Before now if look at The Nigeria Standard newspaper, you will not want to read it.
“But if you take a copy of the newspaper today, you will see the difference.
“We are opening the new machine for commercial printing, if there is any newspaper that wants it to print for them, we will be more than happy to do it because we have the capacity to do it,” he stated.
Manjang also said that the paper entered into an agreement with Plateau Investment and Property Company to finance corporation with the aim of helping it to publish on daily basis.
The commissioner, a former staff of The Nigeria Standard Newspapers, recalled that apart from publishing daily, Standard used to publish the Cactus exercise book, the Rock Magazine as well as produce duplicating papers.
He also recalled that the paper had a Hausa newspaper called “Yancin Dan Adam’ during the time that the late Chief Solomon Lar was the governor of the state.
According to him, people that do not know what information dissemination is think that it is a waste of funds.
“But I can assure you that before the end of the life of this administration, will be back to life.
“The circulation is not as it used to be but we now have e-standard and if you are on the platform where it circulates you will be able to get it.
“We will soon have the internet copy where anyone who wishes to read The Nigeria Standard would just click a button and access it,’’ he said.
He announced that The Nigeria Standard would be 50 years in July.
The Nigeria Standard newspaper was founded in 1972.
It ceased publications in 1986 but was relaunched in 1992.(NAN)
