PPP Congress resolution

May 07, 2024 Editorial

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Kaieteur News – At the conclusion of its 32^nd Congress on Sunday, General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) announced that delegates passed a resolution for the party to use social media to fight back against its critics.

It is a laughable resolution and had it been from any other grouping, perhaps we would have ignored it. First of all, it is not the first time we have heard this from Jagdeo – some time back at a party function, he mentioned this to the faithful. We believe, he might have engineered this resolution, which he said came from members.

The reason for the resolution is for members to get carte blanche to robustly propagate the party’s message of achievements and to fight back against the “naysayers”, which according to Jagdeo if left unchecked will lead to the party being portrayed in an undesirable light by its detractors.  The General Secretary disclosed too that the party in this effort will even be training its younger members to ensure that social media presence is felt, not to “criticise people or engage in nastiness” but ensure the party propagates its achievements and robustly fight off the critics.

It is instructive, that despite having at its behest two newspapers- Guyana Times and Guyana Chronicle – the National Communications Network, with its wide reach and a number of privately-owned news agencies, masquerading as independent entities, the PPP is so troubled by its weak public relations, it has to now employ trolls to do its work. We have already seen the employment of the basket of deplorables who have talk shows – morning and evenings. Even some ministers have their programmes, the likes of “It’s News in the News” yet, we have arrived at this juncture where the trolls have been called up for service.  Jagdeo spoke about the trolls not engaging in “nastiness”, we wonder how he will control the LiveinGuyana blog, which is run by at least one government minister and other senior functionaries of the administration.

We recall that there was a time in Guyana when the media was almost exclusively owned and controlled by the State.  It was not for the greater good.  Free and frank articulations of positions, and presentation and dissection of the fullness of facts, were not given uninhibited passage or reasoned reception.  In fact, the opposite held true, with heavy hostility being the norm, when smidgens of contrarian expressions entered (somehow) into the local consciousness.

Towards the end of the last century, gradual changes occurred, with more independent private media entities casting bigger, deeper footprints, leaving more impressionable shadows.  It was for the better.  Recently, particularly the last three years, State Media has extended its range and influence, and Private Media its numerical silos, with more peculiar presence.  The former should not be, the latter different; in both instances, alarming outcomes have made serious inroads in the media gains of the last few decades. The first difference is that Government (this PPP Government) has, for all intents and purposes, results, cleverly manipulated and extended the reach and presence of the state into selected private media spheres.  While a reasonable expectation is some shrinking of State Media, the opposite has occurred, with artful moulding of the public mind, determined attempts at stifling dissenting voices, and a de facto expansion of State Media, through the establishment of private proxy arrangements, mainly willing surrogates. Thus, unethical leadership behaviours diminish cross-sectional public trust and goodwill. This is, while today’s Government Leaders trumpet abiding love for democratic ideals and practices and have anointed themselves its guardians.  A lynchpin of its ideals and practices is a powerful media presence that is accurate, fair, and equitable, with small allowance for propaganda.  This is notwithstanding, Government or Leaders’ guiles to implement otherwise.  All media sections are obligated to speak from foundations of truth and balance, even when both are unsparing of Government and Leaders specifically, and Politicians, generally.

Regrettably, the PPP Government, given the media conduct of Leaders and Ministers cherish the opposite. Put pungently, today’s Government is populated with presences that deal in shadows, smoke, tricks, half-truths, full lies, and numerous things they publicise through State-controlled Media, and collaborating private ones. Some standards are so rooted, they are norms.  First, State Media has been subverted to serve as the PPP Government’s exclusive channel for bewitching propaganda, vilifying actual opponents, and targeting perceived enemies (who must be made examples).

These norms speak poorly of the ambitions and visions of Guyana’s Leaders; do little to separate them from brawlers on social media, racists within their fold (including themselves) that they incite, and reward to intimidate critics, or propagate.  Likewise, the same must be said for the professionals overseeing, operating, or contributing, in the media section(s) held by the State.  State Media in print, cyberspace, radio and television, must not come across as an unthinking, docile, and rank instrument of Political Masters, through fawning cooperation. There is a professional duty to Government and citizens to do, otherwise you will be failing the nation.

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• Communications, critics, function, People’s Progressive Party (PPP), resolution

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