Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s Stabroek News’s favourite of them all?

Mar 31, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

If you are reading this, tell me how you would feel if each week you open the Sunday edition of the Kaieteur News, there is a news item on what Freddie Kissoon writes extracted from my columns. You are bound to say it is nonsense because the reader can see what I wrote by reading my column. I don’t think for a moment you will ever see that kind of process in any newspaper.
It makes no sense. Now in the newspaper business, news and opinions are like the earth and the moon; they are far removed from each other.
News is the reporting of what has physically occurred in life, whether in the oceans, on another planet or right here on earth. The reporter is not permitted to say while reporting on a crime scene that; “Mr. Jones is such a nice person I doubt he was involved in that bank fraud.”
No journalist can make such an observation because that would be a normative statement or analytical interpretation. Reporting does not deal with interpretations and conclusions. Media houses, both electronic and print, have commentators. That normative statement should be left to the commentator or the editorial in the newspaper.
In the media business, we call this opinion. The commentator’s opinion is his/her own. The editorial reflects what the newspaper believes in. For example; if in the Freddie Kissoon Column I take the position that Shakespeare was the greatest talent that lived why should people be angry with the Kaieteur News management? The paper didn’t say that. It was my opinion and I am entitled to my opinion. I may not have the right opinion but I have the right to my opinion.
News reporting is of a completely different complexion. Senior managers of this paper receive castigations all the time from people out there who do not agree with me. Their point is that why do you have Frederick Kissoon saying these things. It never occurred to some of these fools that if the paper stops me then the paper chose to accept their interpretation over mine. Why should the newspaper do that? The paper can of course get a columnist that is on a different wavelength from me. Kaieteur News has such a person in Peeping Tom.
The Stabroek News over a month now has crossed the line between reporting and opinion in a strange kind of way that questions that newspaper’s professional procedures. For four consecutive weeks, the Stabroek News extracted the contents from the column Mr. Ralph Ramkarran writes for the PPP newspaper, The Mirror, and carries those contents as news items.
This is obscurantist journalism. It borders on the absurd. How can a columnist’s views become news when it is already news by virtue of people reading it? You then have double news or the repeat of the same news. Some examples should drive home the point. I wrote on Sunday that Boyo Ramsaroop felt betrayed by Dr. Cheddi Jagan.
How can the editor then carry a news item saying that Freddie Kissoon wrote that Boyo Ramsaroop felt that Cheddi Jagan let him down? It is in my column. People will read what I have penned.
The Stabroek News has chosen Ralph Ramkarran as the PPP’s presidential nomination. But their approach is unprofessional and insulting to their readers. Instead of running editorials on the political capital and positives of Mr. Ramkarran, the paper is taking Mr. Ramkarran’s Mirror columns and publishing them as news.
The latest one is a news item that indicates that Mr. Ramkarran believes that NIS benefits should go beyond the age of 60.
This is an inelegant way to promote Mr. Ramkarran and it is unprofessional.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with a newspaper having a presidential choice. That is normal in the business. The Stabroek has a right to choose a party. That is not harmful to journalism. In fact, it is acceptable in the newspaper business. How can you argue with the management of a media house that outlines its reason why Mr. This or Mr. That will make a better president?
At the end of the day that is opinion and the paper carries its opinions in its editorial space. What is offensive is the transformation of a politician’s views into news items. Are we to expect next week a news item on Mr. Ramkarran’s favourite movies. But why news on Ramkarran only?
The PNC and AFC have weekly columns. Can’t their views make news in the Stabroek News? Nothing should surprise you in this country!

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Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s Stabroek News’s favourite of them all?

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