AN UNFORTUNATE INCIDENT

Jul 25, 2010 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The purpose of having journalists certified is to ensure that bona fide reporters are not shut out from doing their jobs. Unless there is a process of certification of reporters through the issuance of press passes, you will have a great mob descending on press conferences crowding out regular reporters.
For security purposes, also, it is necessary for journalists to be certified. Where there are security issues involved, you need to ensure that only accredited persons are in attendance.
That said, Guyana is a small country and the media corps are known to each other and to officialdom. The reporters are also not strangers to each other and therefore the demand for media passes should only be made if there are doubts as to the identity of any reporter.
It is not for any government to manage the operations of the private media. We are not dealing with school children. Media workers are not children who need to be taught discipline and adherence to codes.
So there is no need to insist as is done with school children that they need to wear their badges. Persons hosting official press conferences may require media workers to have their accreditation badges but if someone turns up without their media identity, once that person is known, there should be a procedure for accommodating that reporter.
On the question of who should issue accreditation of reporters there is a problem. The government, it seems, requires accreditation by GINA while some media operatives feel that the accreditation should be done by the Guyana Press Association.
The principle behind accreditation should be appreciated here since it will avoid problems. The purpose of accreditation is simply to authenticate that the person concerned is a bona fide reporter and works for a recognized media house. It is not a means to deciding who should be allowed to work as a media operative.
Accrediting journalists should therefore be an automatic process and should be speedy. It involves merely the issuance of an identity pass. Every media house should provide the names of all their reporters to the accrediting agency and the certification process should be automatic. As new persons are employed and are assigned to cover official events, including press conferences, the media houses to which they are attached should seek to have them accredited.
In terms of which body should do the accrediting, there is no one agency concerned. The government has a right to seek to accredit those who cover official press conferences and it has a right to decide that the pass for attending these conferences must be issued by GINA. So long as extraneous conditions are not applied to the issuance of these passes, so long as the government does not seek to dictate who should be certified, then it is proper for the official passes to be issued by GINA.
There is nothing unusual about this. To attend a press briefing, a press pass is necessary and is required to be issued by the Press Office of the White House. No media association is going to issue any pass for the White House.
During local elections, the Guyana Elections Commission may, for example, accredit reporters who will be required to present their specially issued media passes for that event.
Kaieteur News therefore should reconsider its stance on the accreditation process. So long as there are no preconditions attached and so long as the process is automatic, this newspaper should not be opposed to the issuance of press passes issued by GINA.It is unfortunate what took place on Friday where a reporter attached to the Kaieteur News was denied entry into a media conference because he did not have a GINA badge. Once it was clear that he was not an imposter, and this is very easy to verify, he should have been allowed entry to the press conference.
The insistence on him having his badge ought to have been waived in this instance. It is not like he is not known to those concerned.