The media’s mediocrity is on the rise

Jun 26, 2008 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
Our standards of journalism are dropping and so is the media’s ability to effectively inform the nation.
I say this within the context of the pursuance of the criminal network of Mr. Rondell Rawlins and the level of reporting that is being dished out to this nation.

Instead we have very confusing reports that the average Guyanese cannot deal with.

Furthermore, we have many loose ends being left when it is the media’s job to help viewers, listeners and readers to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

Even those involved in disseminating information to the press are to be blamed for what I am about to delve into.

We have the media repeating themselves frequently each day both on the evening newscasts and the newspapers as well as radio.

As I said, I am making specific reference to the reporting concerning the current hunt for Guyana’s most wanted criminal network. Obviously there was or there are lots that are going on in the jungle terrain of Guyana.

Most Guyanese do not know the jungle terrain of Guyana. Most Guyanese do not know where places such as Lindo Creek, UNAMCO logging road, Kwakwani Junction, The Gate, Brazilian Camp, etc. are.

Where in God’s name is Christmas Falls? Is there actually a waterfall wherever that is? Then what is ‘Goat Farm’?

Day after day, references are made on numerous occasions in the various newspapers, TV and radio news but I am sure that many Guyanese are baffled and getting a very vague picture of this kind of shallow news reporting that does not beg to dig deeper.

The media’s job is not only to report the news that the Join Services are handing to them but to help the nation understand certain concepts involved in this very huge story.

Then why do many TV newscasts show us the newspapers photographs and regurgitate all that we’ve read in the newspapers the previous day and will read in the newspapers tomorrow.

It’s as if they’ve copied verbatim from the newspapers or vice versa. I really do not know. But I give the media a big fat ‘F’ in reporting on this story concerning the hunt that is going on for the criminal network in Guyana’s interior.

What should have been a juicy story for the media is nothing more than a repetitive kind of reporting that we are accustomed to see, hear and read each day in the media — nothing more.

Why in this day and age of advanced technology that we only have limited, overused photographs of the Christmas Falls area?

Why isn’t there some kind of footage of what is going on behind the scenes in the jungle areas? Surely this cannot compromise anything concerning the investigations.

Hasn’t anyone from the media come up with the idea to travel to this ‘Ground Zero’ as it were, in the Guyana jungle some hundreds of miles up the Berbice River, to have a firsthand look to bring to the nation?

I believe the media is very comfortable in the state that it’s currently in. What do you expect? I guess the money’s not too good. The mediocrity in doing what they’re supposed to do is on the rise.

I had mentioned in a letter to the media which only published in the Guyana Chronicle that CNN and BBC would’ve had a field day doing this story concerning the hunt for Guyana’s most wanted criminal network.
Sometimes many daily newspapers have the same and identical Reuters news reports from the international scene.

Now why is that? Why is that happening when we have many other organisations to pull international news from such as CNN, BBC, Fox News, NBC News, ABC News, CBC, etc?

Maybe the media is afraid to send their journalists in the jungle —to Christmas Falls or to Goat Farm. Maybe they’re being prevented from reporting more in depth to the nation.

Maybe the TV newscasts do not have any videos of Christmas Falls and other hot spots in this ripped out scene from an action drama. Maybe the media has to put up with vague and slow reporting from the Guyana army. I may be wrong. But what are they doing about it?

This drama has been going on behind the scenes in the Guyana jungle over the past couple of weeks. What has the media done to feed this nation which is hungry for information? Not much if you ask me.

I have said so many times before that the media in any country has a very important role in any democracy.
So when will we see some effective changes? Let the nation see that the media in Guyana is actually worth their salt.
Leon Jameson Suseran