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David De Caires to be cremated in Barbados today
Press freedom advocate and Editor-in-Chief of Stabroek News, David De Caires who died on Saturday last will be cremated in Barbados today.
The stalwart, who succumbed to a battle with illness, was praised in the media and was the subject of a barrage of heartening tributes.
David De Caires
On the news of his death, the Guyana Press Association in a statement had said that a fighter had fallen.
It noted that the Guyanese and Caribbean media fraternities have lost a hero of the modern press.
The GPA said that despite him being a British-trained solicitor, his first love had always been journalism — a craft he practised to perfection along with long time legal colleague, attorney-at-law Miles Fitzpatrick, SC.
It was those earlier years of journalist practice in a number of magazines that eventually fructified in 1986 with the establishment of the Stabroek News — Guyana’s first privately-owned daily newspaper since the 1970s — when the political economy had forced the closure of several private newspapers.
Mr De Caires’s greatest contribution to Guyana’s era of glasnost and perestroika, therefore, was the opening up of the media landscape after a period of considerable state-control and authoritarianism under various guises by the then administration.
Eventually, the wind of global change touched the country, and De Caires and local and regional associates quickly grasped the moment, resulting in then President Desmond Hoyte fulfilling a promise that Trinidadian media magnate Ken Gordon had secured from him during an interview.
“While David’s name is etched in the annals of Guyanese and Caribbean media history, for being instrumental in slackening the clutches of state control on the media several decades ago, he will more latterly be remembered for his valiant struggle against the withdrawal of Government advertisements from the Stabroek News newspaper.
“Though that appeared to be a private business matter, he led Guyanese of all walks of life in defiance against all odds, not only for his entity but for the entire country, whose daily decision-making depend on authentic and credible information. For him and all those who stood by his side, Guyana must never go back to the dark ages of state control of the media, and set a precedent for other countries of this region to follow.
“Our heartfelt condolences to David’s immediate family, relatives, the Board of Directors and staff of the Stabroek News newspaper, and his friends in the Guyanese and Caribbean media fraternities.
“We are confident that his contribution to the media-landscape will be long cherished and perpetuated by his competent team of editors and staff.”
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