A storm in a teacup

Apr 07, 2011 Editorial

There are times when incidents expose the nature of the society and bring out the best or worse in people. Sometimes, these issues are internal matters but somehow they slip into the public domain because one party feels that if he or she enters the court of public opinion then justice would be swift.
And when the matter enters the public domain things often get murky or distorted. The arbiters seek to cover all angles by questioning the embattled parties. They ask questions and more often than not, in the heat of the moment people would exaggerate their role in the entire affair.
Meanwhile, there are those on the outside who would have a position on the issue. They would firmly align themselves with the people they support. Sometimes for them, wrong becomes right. And at the same time, there are those who allow their perception and their biases to emerge. The situation becomes even worse because if these people have access to the media, they would write or broadcast, further extending the bounds of public domain, and selling some of the misinformation they gather.
Sometimes, they make an issue of the political support one person may offer to another and if the supporter is a member of the media fraternity the issue becomes even more clouded. It is here that good reporters would sift through the murk and eventually get a story that is very close to accuracy.
So it was that the headlines blared what should have been an internal issue in this newspaper but which not only caught national and international attention, but also took on political dimensions. The issue at hand had to do with whether Freddie Kissoon would continue as a columnist with Kaieteur News.
There were a few people who were interested in the truth and they sought answers; they spoke to as many people as possible and they made their deductions. They learnt that there was an issue of credibility and had it been left unchallenged then the future of the newspaper could have been placed in doubt. The newspaper investigated itself.
This would not have been the first time that a newspaper would have investigated itself and it certainly would not be the last. More often than not, when a newspaper does some self-inspection it would take action if it finds that the fault rested with itself or with its contributors. Washington Post sacked Janet Cooke for fabricating a story about a child drug addict.
Other media houses had similar problems and to protect their integrity they sacked the offending contributor. In Guyana where the population is small and the skills are lacking, sacking is often a last resort. That is why many media houses in the country are always apologizing for indiscretions.
And so we come to revelations and conclusions based on faulty premises. The Managing Director of Kaieteur News happens to have more than a passing relationship with the presidential candidate of the People’s Progressive Party. A recent episode at the newspaper was linked to this relationship by people who have their own political biases.
The intention was to suggest that the newspaper would lose its independent stance and become a mouthpiece of the presidential candidate. The real issue became clouded. There were suggestions and many people forgot that a newspaper has people of different political persuasions. Many of these people would object to the blatant use of a newspaper to promote one political view.
At the same time, the owners of the newspaper know that the people who support the newspaper come from across the political divide. To ignore the readership would be to seek disaster.
The readership was divided on the Freddie Kissoon issue. There were those who said that they would no longer buy the newspaper and there were those who stated that some of those who could not care less and may even have welcome the turn of events.
Suffice it to say that the matter has been resolved but the management is at pains to state that no one would ever hold the newspaper to ransom. If there were those who would have stopped buying the paper equally there would have been others who would have begun to buy it.
But that is now a non-issue because whatever the problem was is now a dead issue. Yet it has served as a lesson to others in the fold. It tells us that unless we are accurate we cold pay a harsh price.

Discover more from Kaieteur News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Latest News