Latest update March 29th, 2024 12:59 AM
Mar 18, 2018 Letters
Dear Editor,
Following the news about the Guyana Chronicle and the termination of contract with two of its columnists, there are few issues observers of political events, media communication and history would note.
In opposition, it was the APNU and AFC that slashed the state media budget. Both parties socialised us to believe the practices of state media outlets in silencing the voice of the Opposition, non-government stakeholders, dissent and diverse views were anti-democratic. Then Leader of the Opposition David Granger, in justifying the Opposition’s decision reportedly told a gathered crowd “You do not know the full truth because the state media are not free” (SN May 2, 2012). Mr. Granger vowed to continue slashing proposed budgetary allocation until the practice of silencing the voice of others changed. This righteous tough-talking stance earned the people’s respect who wanted change to a state media culture they long clamoured against.
He who presently exercises ministerial oversight of state media is the same person who did so in October 1992. Adam Harris, then Editor-in Chief of the Guyana Chronicle was sent into forced resignation and up until a few years ago was still not paid pension and other benefits due him. (I hope this injustice has been addressed). In 1992, the newly Minister of Information Moses Nagamootoo reportedly informed Chronicle staffers “the new [PPP] Government wanted a clean slate and was prepared to accept the resignation of anyone who was prepared to leave in the public interest” (KN November 9, 2008). I can recall Professor Ken Danns referring to Mr. Harris as one of the best if not the best journalist in Guyana. Mr. Harris went on to distinguish himself during the Tony Vieira Evening News telecast and continues to with Prime News and as Editor of Kaieteur News.
The state media of October 1992 embarked on a policy students of critical media studies would find disturbing. It is colloquially best summed up by former President and Leader of the Opposition Hugh Desmond Hoyte who referred to the Chronicle as a rag sheet and called on the citizenry not to purchase. In 2015, then Editor-in- Chief Mark Ramotar was fired amidst much government hype of a new media culture and support by the public for it. The current Editor-in-Chief Nigel Williams was hired. His major distinguishing feature from Sharief Khan who was hired after Mr. Harris was ousted, is that he is not seen as someone awash with the raw political smell. If this will be to his ultimate undoing or survival time will tell.
It is always an easy clutch when things go wrong to attribute blame to the PNC. That party has the unenviable place of its good being interred in its bones. State media operated under two periods during the PNC. 1) the Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham era:- newly independent nation, the closed society and Cold War eras, along with borders issues, where the national agenda was driven by Indigenous pursuit and survival, and 2) the Hoyte era:- 19-year old nation in the open society and post-Cold War eras, but functioning within international market-oriented forces of a new economic order.
Critical content review of the two eras- supportive of the PNC government or not-compared to what has happened to state media since October 1992 shows decline in quality and presentation, though interspersed at times with a flickering of hope. The truth is what is presently happening in Guyana Chronicle is not a reversal to the Burnham era. With the exception of the unresolved border problems, that era no longer operates. We are living in the PPP state media era, created by Mr. Nagamootoo in 1992, and we must respectfully insist he be duly credited for his craftsmanship. I’ve read credit being attributed to Mr. Nagamootoo as a longstanding fighter for press freedom. Such accolades may have credence when having little or no power to implement, but could it still be ascribed when power resides and there’s failure to ensure?
President Granger was the owner of the Guyana Review and Emancipation Magazine, which I was a subscriber of. He attributed having to sell his business given the absence of advertising dollar. This happened during a period where other media houses experienced similar problems, given the pressure brought by PPP Government on businesses to withhold their advertising dollars and the withdrawal of state advertisements.
The economic aside, significantly as a politician in the Opposition, Mr. Granger articulated the view of Messrs. Hoyte and Robert Corbin of the PNCR that the state media must be treated as the people’s media, which it is by ownership. Presently, this ‘newly branded’ Chronicle, in less than two years of seemingly toddling towards creating a new dispensation for the people, is finding bosom comfort in the October 1992 model.
President Granger is no stranger to being on the receiving end of what it feels like to have others seek to stifle or silence your voice because it is perceived not to be in the interest of the status quo or what they think the people should hear. As a student of history, the President could recount numerous stories of such efforts, from the enslavers on down, that failed to stop man’s innate instinct for expression, growth and development.
Finally, it may matter not where the decision lies pertaining to the columnists or their future in the newspapers but where our society is now heading under two leaders, President Granger and Prime Minister Nagamootoo, who as members of the Opposition presented arguments for respecting diverse views, which include the natural right to critique and counter critique, in the state media; and whether either or both was/were ever serious about the things they said. This is the issue.
Minette Bacchus
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
Mar 29, 2024
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