Freddie Kissoon - Mr. Jagdeo will end his tenure not knowing this country

Freddie Kissoon – Mr. Jagdeo will end his tenure not knowing this country

Jun 07, 2008 Freddie Kissoon

There are things that each of us in this world know so that we can say; “I know this thing a little better than you.” I will now say to President Jagdeo that I know what the Guyanese people expect from a newspaper more than he does.

I have been associated with all the major independent newspapers of this country since 1988 not only doing columns but pursuing legitimate journalistic investigations. I may not be an expert on the media. I may not know how to run a newspaper. But this I know – I think I better understand the relationship between newspapers and their readers than Mr. Jagdeo.

I wasn’t there for Mr. Jagdeo’s speech at the launching of the Guyana Times. I chose to go after he was finished. But I have listened to the tape. Mr. Jagdeo was in full praise for the new media house. He thinks that a newspaper should be critical and truthful. The term “truth” is one that should hardly be the subject of debate. It is a philosophically esoteric concept that ends up being possessed by everyone.

There are then a billion truths. There is your truth and my truth. I don’t know what Mr. Jagdeo’s truths are and what he means by truth. But in journalism it is safer to travel the route of facts and statistics. Statistics and facts are not yours and mine. They belong to science.

Let us give an example of truth to see how shapeless it is. Then we will look at how concrete are facts and statistics. The truth about the sixties is that the PNC unleashed violence on the PPP. This is one approach. There is another truth that sees the PPP as the culprit.

Here are facts and statistics. The US Embassy says Guyana has the highest rate of visa- absconders in the entire area of the Caribbean and South America. They compiled the figures. And this is a statistic not from the eighties but for the past few years long after the PPP came to power.
Now is that a truth? Whatever it is, it is a fact that you and I cannot twist. Here is another statistical fact. More Guyanese are turned back at the airport in Barbados than any other CARICOM nation. Here is yet another statistical fact. The World Bank’s compilations of figures show that 80 per cent of Guyanese with tertiary education leave this country.

Mr. Jagdeo can say that it is untruthful to assert that Guyanese do not want to stay. He cannot say that it is unfactual. The statistics do not lie. What has all of this got to do with the Guyana Times?
If according to the President, Guyana needs a serious paper that must be critical and truthful, then why is it statistically factual that the Chronicle of which he is directly in charge because he is the Minister of Information has a much, much smaller circulation than the Kaieteur News and the Stabroek News?

The reason is that the Chronicle carried truths that belonged to the Government and not facts that belonged to science.

People wanted facts not the truths of the government and the Office of the President so they refused to patronise the Chronicle. But just as important; why as Minister of Information didn’t the President steer the Chronicle in the direction of being critical. We have another conceptual dilemma. Just as we do not know what the President means by truth, we do not know what he means by critical.
Here is my take on his definition of both terms. By truth, he means the perspective of the Office of the President. By critical, he means the protection of the government. Here is where I fear for the Guyana Times.

If the Guyana Times is going to be critical and truthful the way the Chronicle is (or should I say was?), then I think we are in for a massive failure of this new venture.

From the tape I listened to, President Jagdeo told the Guyana Times guests that he knows he is a controversial person. This is where my knowledge of newspaper readers comes in. They want to read about controversies especially about the Government because the government is the most powerful institution in the land. They want to read about the rumours, controversies and mysteries of the Government because like most people around the world, they do not trust politicians.

There are two indisputable facts (not truths) about the Guyana Times; (1) – the President acknowledged publicly that its owner is his friend. (2) – Top government people are intimate with the paper. President Jagdeo is under an illusion if he thinks the Guyanese people are going to buy a pro-government newspaper. The President doesn’t know the Guyanese people at all. Hasn’t he learnt anything from the failure of the Chronicle?