The Publisher’s Note on Kissoon was in bad taste

Apr 22, 2011 Letters

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Dear Editor,
It was in bad taste and in poor judgment for the publisher to add a note to the end of Freddie Kissoon’s column 4-20-2011, indicating that Kissoon had attacked “people’s children” in his column the day before.
It is unfortunate that the publisher would take this view, his note has led me to reread the column several times and I still do not see where a child was attacked. Kissoon was writing about the issue of the importance officials place on US Visa and their relevance to democratic governance. And as a subtext it invokes the concept of one’s loyalty to country and the fact that people who serve at the highest level of government and having taken ministerial oath of office should demonstrate, in the least, a superior unwavering brand of loyalty; and that the PPP which boasts of a great record of progress in Guyana should want to live here to validate the economy they spent 19 years building.
Guyanese patriotism will wane and ordinary citizens will continue to flee the country, if the people who craft the economy do not demonstrate active faith in it. It is like building a bridge then telling everyone that its structural integrity is sound but when asked to cross the same bridge the builder sprints in the other direction, how can you trust him?
That’s the essential point I understand Kissoon to be making, and to give a concrete example he made reference to a highly placed Government official who demonstrated a brand of disloyalty (that Jamaicans will not accept) by creating a mess here while feathering his nest in another country so that he and his family can ride off into the sunset while the rest of us are left to wallow in the morass left behind.
He points out that this official has been strategically planning his escape by ensuring that his family gets US citizenship by having his children delivered there. There was no reference to the name of the children, no reference to the name of the highly placed individual and certainly no child attack. It is fair and within acceptable parameters for columnists to refer to an event which involves children if it makes a point without naming and shaming, drawing inference or directly ascribing impropriety to the children.
From this particular column the children in question to whom the publisher apologised cannot be identified either from the
column or the apology itself. I understand and appreciate your standards for not attacking children, if Kissoon or any other journalists or columnists would have done so that demands not only a warning but a suspension and possible dismissal/cessation, even in the most liberal US media that is not tolerated.
This issue about reporting on the children of government officials was hotly debated in the US when a Fox reporter made a negative remark about Chelsea Clinton during the Clinton presidency, the American media and public were outraged leading to stricter codes of conduct on the issue.
Having said that, if it is found that any serving politician or high level US Government official is strategically arranging the birth of his children in Canada and accepting Canadian citizenship for his children all hell will break loose in the American media; that will be the end of his career in US public service.
It’s not reporting on the child per se but stating the fact that a sworn official uses the birth of his child to acquire foreign citizenship as such is a national infidel, a ‘sellout’ as we Guyanese would say.
Mr. Publisher, are you saying that a columnist cannot refer to a situation involving children to illustrate a point? I think the publisher (in this case) erred and did not fully appreciate the fundamental gait of Kissoon’s writing; this led to nitpicking at an inconsequential statement and failure to gut both the subtext and the overarching argument.
Recently I had a discussion with some friends who identified a concern they shared about a growing trend for some parents loan their babies to street beggars in exchange for a portion of the proceeds from the day’s begging.
Let’s assume a well-placed civil servant was also involved in this practice and a reporter mentions the fact that a parent repeatedly and knowingly loans his child to perpetuate this practice of begging with an infant to elicit the pity of passersby, how is that attacking the child?
And Mr. Publisher, Kissoon did make mention of the wife of the individual and in your note you did not upbraid him for that, are you saying it’s okay to write about an official’s wife? Wonder what Stella thinks? Isn’t this journalistic double standard?
Mr. Publisher by writing this note you have diminished the editorial standing of the entire publication, that’s an internal matter, you should not try to clean your dirty laundry in public. I think that issue should have been taken up with Mr. Kissoon before his column goes to press, that was poor judgment on your part and you should retract that note.
I think your heart is in the right place but it’s a little out of rhythm on this one.

Lennox Craig

Publisher’s note:  Mr Kissoon’s arguments were based on a fallacy. As a columnist he has the right to be accurate. Just for the records, the parties he wrote about in his column do not need to travel twice annually to maintain American citizenship. The children were born in the United States and are citizens. To state that they are using taxpayers’ money to travel twice a year to maintain that citizenship is false.
The question of seeking to protect the possibility of future citizenship was also rooted in a fallacy. The children are infants and the parents must travel with them. This has nothing to do with American citizenship.
Because of Kissoon’s ignorance or his deliberate misrepresentations I had no choice but to conclude that he picked on the children to perpetrate the falsehood, hence the warning.
As for the matter being in-house it was stated sand discussed over and over with Mr Kissoon and the editors, that there will be no attack on people’s children.
The publication was an oversight on the part of the editor of the day.

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