Vindictiveness and spite

Aug 30, 2010 Editorial

Responding once to complaints that the then opposition was getting too “big for its britches” and becoming emboldened in its criticism of his government, LFS Burnham pointed out that “there are many ways to kill a cat”.
And he proceeded to list a set of gruesome options: strangling, beheading, scalding, mange…etc. Dubbing the press of the present as the “modern opposition” – quite a sad indictment of the actual political opposition – it would appear that the present administration has imbibed more than a thing or two from the playbook of Mr. Burnham.
Obviously stung by the revelations of official excesses, if not outright illegalities, unearthed by our investigative journalism, the administration – led by its very highest official – first questioned our bona fides. We were not qualified: where did we, or more pointedly our publisher, earn his degree in economics to question the award of contracts?
They had forgotten that the “trained” economists from Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow had not noticeably improved Russia’s fortunes – and certainly not Guyana’s. The school of hard knocks has produced more business success than any economist ever did.
Then came the officers of our tax administration. The books of our businesses were gone over with so many fine teeth combs that it was a wonder any numbers were left on the pages. And it was not just the books of the newspapers – key players in the newspaper and even the businesses of relatives and friends – came in for the special hazing.
“The tax-man cometh”, of course, had been heartily denounced in the past by those that are now stalking the corridors of power and prepared to remain there by “any means necessary”. Then, of course, there is the libel suit from a President that cannot be sued for any act done in or outside of his official capacity. It is not ironic, merely pathetic.
The differential allocation of governmental and other official advertisement to the press came early in the day. Kaieteur News had never been in the favoured circle in the first decade of its existence and so had evolved and adapted to an environment where survival – much less prosperity – depended solely on apprehending and delivering just what the people wanted.
When the spigot was turned off from the Stabroek News, that newspaper waged a vigorous campaign locally and internationally for pressure to be brought to bear on the Government.
The government finally altered its insistence that its actions were dictated purely from a cost-effectiveness standpoint: that those ads were directed to newspapers in proportion to their circulation.
But any hopes that the government had at last seen the empyreal light were dashed when a new newspaper – owned by one who the President admitted was a “friend” – was launched. How else would it survive with its vapid contents without government ads? And the volume of those life-sustaining ads have risen even as the circulation of the “friend’s” newspaper have plummeted.
And as our government ads dried up – totally coincidental, cried the government, nothing to do with our exposes – we did not bother with any protests. We knew the nature of the beast: it will never be swayed by moral suasion. Its instinct is only towards triumphalism and any sign of asking for fairness is to be considered weak.
We did what they never expected: we raised our prices and called upon the people that had made us into the largest circulating newspaper in the land, to stand with us in this hour of our testing. And they did more than stand: our circulation has actually increased with the increase in prices.
And so we arrive at the latest ploy to muzzle the voices that are pointing out that the Emperor has no clothes. There will be a website on which will be posted all contracts to be bid on.
Be as it may, as we have already stated, we will not be moved from our commitment to present the truth to the people so that they van make informed choices. This is the role of the press as we struggle for democracy to be entrenched in our land.

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Vindictiveness and spite

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