Latest update April 25th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jul 20, 2008 Features / Columnists
The local media continues to be up in arms because President Bharrat Jagdeo decided to respond to an insult by a reporter who believes that the rule of law and decency should not exist in this country.
Reporters have, over time, been behaving as though they are a law unto themselves. They use their access to the media to level scurrilous attacks against people. But for the slow nature of the courts, people would have flooded the courts with actions for libel and slander.
Instead, most of the people simply take the insults, the attacks and the scurrility in stride, losing their temper in the process but keeping the faith that one day all this would end. If some of these people who were vilified should chose to take the laws into their own hands, then the reporters would have turned to the Government with pleas for help and protection.
Reporters have used headlines in the most sensational manner to promote falsehoods, and when confronted, would sometimes offer a correction; although, more often than not, they simply ignore doing the right thing and continue with more scurrilous acts against people. Government officials and politicians are not exempt from these attacks.
In fact, the Government ministers and officials seem to be the whipping boys because, at almost every instance, there is some attack. The accusations of corruption without any evidence, the descent into the private lives of some of these people on the ground that the American reporters do it, and the snide comments about people seem to be par for the course.
When there is a threat of retaliation, the reporters shy away from reporting on the source of the threat. None of them dared report on the drug lords in the society, because they knew that there would have been a violent response from the person attacked.
Had it not been for the trial of Roger Khan in the United States, none of the news of his existence would have come to the fore. These reporters are writing at this time because Khan is outside the jurisdiction and is incapable of retaliating. None dared mention his name in news reports, even when they knew other things about him.
When the killing squads roamed, the reporters knew the identity of some of the members but they dared not write anything.
However, they are quick to write about people who they know would refrain from physical violence simply because these people believe in the rule of law. It is for this reason that Mr Gordon Moseley could write about being fed up with the attacks by the President.
Had he been a member of a presidential press corps in any part of the world he would have been kicked off, because no one, not even reporters in the United States who are a part of the presidential detail, can write such a thing.
But this is Guyana, where everyone knows everyone else, and where people take liberties. So, if someone should react to an excess of liberty, then that person is seen as a dictator, and this is the case here.
The President responded to this breach of ethics on the part of a reporter who has access to him, and all of a sudden the President is an object of blame. He is blamed for exercising his right of association, which is something entrenched in the constitution. Everybody has rights, but President Jagdeo has none. If he chooses to exercise any right, then he must accept criticism and blame.
Everyone has a right to his association, and the President is no different. He chooses not to have Moseley visit his home or his office. What is wrong with that? The press is up in arms, and the Guyana Press Association has the right to any course of action it may choose.
At this time, the move seems to be to ignore the Government, to the extent that there seems to be a media blackout, and again that is a right. No one is blaming the media. But the President decides to exercise his right, and he is being blamed. The move is that he must now apologise to Moseley. Sheer poppycock.
The President has taken a stand, and he must be respected; but the media has adopted the position that the President has no right.
Jagdeo giving Exxon 102 cent to collect 2 cent.
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