Guyana: Gutter journalism in a fascist environment

Apr 22, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

This essay is about the Chronicle’s gutter journalism as manifested in its Monday issue and the audacity, temerity and hypocrisy of Prem Misir to lecture the private media on what is professional journalism.
But a few words about a repeated statement made by Misir on this writer. A number of times he wrote that Guyana is a democracy because if it wasn’t, how could Frederick Kissoon have had the freedom to criticize the Government?
At the same time these words come out of his mouth, he speaks about the PNC dictatorship of 28 years. Well if there was a dictatorship for 28 years before the PPP won the 1992 elections, could Misir tell us why and how the PPP survived and survived to control an anti-government trade union (GAWU), run a daily newspaper (the Mirror) and had hundreds of its first and second tier leaders working in the public sector most of whom hold high office today?
I will develop this theme in another column but the name Roger Luncheon comes to mind. Can somebody tell me when the PNC Government dismissed him from his public sector job? Let’s return to Prem Misir and the paper in which he has a big say by sitting on its board.
Misir suggested to the publisher of this paper that he should take a keener role in the composition of the editorials (which no doubt it is what he does for the Chronicle but with Randy Persaud’s run over to KN and SN because no one reads what they write in the Chronicle).
Then Misir advised the editor of KN that he should use the scissors more often when passing my columns. He got badly bruised when, in response to this particular call, KN ran an editorial suggesting that he take a look at the Chronicle.
Thirdly, Misir advised the KN and SN that they are not practising sound journalism because the Government’s record of achievements is not published by these two media houses.
The very KN editorial cited above, asked Misir if the Chronicle prints the sordid tales of the Guyana Government. Of course this was putting it mildly. Sordid is a baby word.
This Government is an elected dictatorship enveloped by fascist features one of which is sexual perversities. More on this is a subsequent column.
Misir has adopted his master’s mantra (President Jagdeo that is) about the private media being the new opposition.
Writing in both KN and SN but particularly this newspaper, Misir carps about this “new opposition” (see his KN letters of Feb 24, 28) all the time. But what he fails to mention is that his paper the Chronicle is a failure and that explains why Misir wants a letter to be carried in the Sunday edition of KN every week.
Why the Sunday edition? Misir wants to be read. The Sunday edition has the largest circulation. .
Well let’s see how the Chronicle is doing in terms of professional journalism. I do not read the Chronicle and the Guyana Times. I sat down in Adam Harris’s chair Monday evening at Kaieteur News while Harris was in another room, and I picked up his copy of both of these propaganda rags.
I read a letter and editorial condemning CN Sharma. I then turned to Nigel Mc Kenzie, sitting next to me, and commented on the gutter journalism of the Chronicle.
Whether you dislike or hate CN Sharma, he is entitled to a fair trial and not by the Chronicle, some of whose staff under this government in the recent past could be accused of “you know what”
The letter and editorial were disgusting. But I wasn’t surprised and most Guyanese would not be. My point here is not about the miasmic rut that has overtaken the Chronicle under this elected dictatorship. It is about Misir’s hypocrisy. And he should be exposed for it.
Here is a man lecturing to high-class newspapers that the Chronicle could never match about professional journalism and giving the other side a hearing. Yet his paper is so convoluted, nauseating and filthy that it could easily be described as the worst media rag in the entire world.
One thing for sure, the Chronicle has easily put me in the record books of Guyana. No one has been featured as often as I have in the Chronicle letter columns since newspapers were read in this country. For three consecutive years, the letter pages have carried over two hundred missives on me each year. Wow! What a record man! What do you call this? Obsession! Should I take out a restraining order?

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Guyana: Gutter journalism in a fascist environment

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