Questions for journalism

Jul 22, 2011 Editorial

A couple of letter writers questioned our recent decision to publish – on our front pages – pictures of several victims from the horrendous accident on Homestretch Avenue.
Even though the accident eventually claimed five dead, the front-page pictures did not include them. One interlocutor, fresh out of journalism school, charged that KN violated the ethics of journalism in publishing these pictures.
More specifically, that we violated our responsibility to the people we report on – in this case, the victims.
We would like to assure the letter writer, and all other readers that may share her view, that we spend a tremendous amount of time in weighing the factors she herself identified before we print such pictures. These are the public’s right to be informed versus the sensibilities and privacy of those that make the news.
No one can deny that today in Guyana we have a crisis of immense proportions in the usage of our roads. The matter has become so blatant that even the US State Department found it necessary to issue an advisory to its citizens visiting Guyana, on our traffic mayhem.
Over the last decade, there have been quite a number of initiatives, both public and private, to get a handle on the problem, but to no avail. “Mothers in Black” have marched and picketed tirelessly; the traffic police have introduced “speed guns”; laws have been tightened by the legislators; road signs on the roads have been painted and repainted etc. etc. But the accidents and their victims keep piling up. What else can be done?
This newspaper is of the very firm view that in matters that ultimately affect society, it is only the people collectively in the end that can make a difference in effectuating changes in behaviour. To state the matter bluntly, the carnage on our roads will only decrease when the people decide to declare in one voice, “NO MORE!”
The people will have to demand of those who use the road, especially those who are responsible for public transportation, pull up their socks when it comes to safety. It is the job of the media to let the citizens of the country know the facts about and behind the bloodbath, and to remind them of their responsibilities.
And we cannot pussyfoot around the issue: these accidents are bloody. Not only were five persons’ lives snuffed out, but almost every other passenger in the fifteen-seater bus was maimed or otherwise injured. What we displayed on our front page was what was literally on the ground on Homestretch Avenue.
Citizens must know as clearly as we possibly can present, the consequences of improper road use. A picture is worth a thousand words. The people must appreciate in the most personal and intense fashion that it could be them on the ground. Only then, in our estimation, will they begin to make the right noises and engage in the right actions to change the deplorable status quo.
Let us just consider what we know about the accident. There was a tyre blowout that hurled the vehicle out of control. Blowouts are endemic in Guyana because used tyres are imported. These tyres were determined by overseas drivers to have become unsafe for roads that are invariably in much better conditions than ours, yet we allow them to be sold in our country. People that become incensed at our road-kill rate would protest the sale of used tyres.
Then, the driver’s licence had expired. This is simply a trope for what is the norm for every regulation that is required in our country. We have to insist that when it comes to the legal requirements for driving, these are for the benefit of everyone. Yet every Guyanese knows of another that boasts that he/she has been driving around without a licence (much less an expired one) for years.
It is our fervent belief that if our pictures could spark the necessary outrage in the public, we will have served the very best interests of the victims of the daily slaughter on our roadways.

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