IT CAN HAPPEN

Apr 01, 2009 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Ever since the Guyana Times came out, I have begun to look differently upon toilet paper. I do not read the Guyana Times but I have been kept abreast by friends who share the same concerns that I have about government advertising in that newspaper.
As someone who examines social and political issues in this column, I have been interested in the policy of government advertising, especially in respect to the Guyana Times, and I am writing again about this subject because everything that I have predicted so far in relation to the Guyana Times has come to pass.
I predicted that government advertisements would eventually find their way slowly, incrementally, but surely, into the Guyana Times.
My prediction was correct. These ads have been appearing in the Guyana Times.
Last Sunday, I am told, there was an advertisement from an agency which falls under the Ministry of Agriculture. And yesterday I was not surprised to have been told by the staff of the Kaieteur News that there were two full-page government advertisements which did not appear in the two foremost independent dailies.
This is not an issue of competitive jealously. No, I am not worried by the fact that a newspaper in competition with the Kaieteur News is receiving state advertisements. This newspaper did not receive government advertisements for the first ten years of its existence. This newspaper never complained about competition and has no reason to do so now.
Anyone in the newspaper business would know that government ads serve as a kind of magnet for private advertisements.  There is a correlation in the early stages of a newspaper between the receipt of government ads and corresponding receipt of private ads.
If you receive government ads in your early years, you usually also get a large number of private ads at the same time.
This newspaper never got government ads for ten years and it was only after it had begun through its own popularity to have marketing success with private ads and its circulation soared that government ads were forthcoming.
From this perspective, one can argue that while there is no economic basis for the government advertising in the Guyana Times (the newspaper has minimal circulation), the receipt of government ads does encourage private firms to advertise within the Guyana Times and thus the use of government ads without a sound economical basis can be said to indirectly support the survival of the newspaper.
And this is why this column has continued to question the state ads that have appeared in the Guyana Times.
The use of public funds to advertise in a newspaper without any appreciable gains constitutes an abuse of public funds. Abuse of public funds is a serious matter.
The public must also be aware of the ramifications of government advertising in the newspaper, which has no significant circulation and which forms part of a grouping of companies that have derived a good deal from the government.  It is for this reason that despite having little interest in buying the Guyana Times, I continue to listen to those who have been closely monitoring the placement of advertisements in that newspaper.
The public must understand that when the government withdrew advertisements from the Stabroek News, it indicated that this was a business decision and that it was opting for value for money by placing ads where it had the greatest response. The justification for the decision to withhold advertisements from the Stabroek News was based on economic and marketing considerations.
However, it is not a coincidence that this policy was completely overturned just before the Guyana Times was launched.  It was not a coincidence that just before the Guyana Times was launched ads were given back to the Stabroek News. I believe that the advertising policy was changed so as to facilitate the eventual placements of government ads in the Guyana Times.
It would have been too blatant for the government, when the newspaper first started, to have immediately given the Guyana Times ads so soon after the withdrawal of ads from the Stabroek News. But government ads are now slowly being given to the Guyana Times and my fear is that one day down the line, Guyanese will wake up and find that the Guyana Times has more government ads than the Guyana Chronicle.
And who knows, given that private advertisers take their cue from the placement of government ads, that one day years from now we will wake up and find that the Guyana Chronicle has folded and the Stabroek News is closed and the Kaieteur News is in problems. And that will leave us with what existed in the days of Burnham: one newspaper that is pro- government. It can happen.

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