Mr. Bisram is just laughing at the newspapers

Aug 21, 2011 Letters

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Dear Editor,
I write in relation to a correspondence by M. Maxwell (KN – Mon. Aug 15 and SN -Tues Aug 16) with very similar titles requesting both papers to desist from publishing polls claimed to have been done by Mr. Vishnu Bisram.
My letter is specifically directed to the editor of the Stabroek News
For more twelve years now, Mr. Bisram has claimed to be a pollster with a New York based organization named NACTA that employs him to carry surveys around the world. For the same period, Mr. Bisram claimed to be a full-time high school teacher in New York. Before 2009, Mr. Bisram succeeded in getting his phantom polls published in both independent dailies as news items.
The game had to come to an end. There was no evidence to prove that this man does field work in Guyana, an organization named NACTA existed or that Mr. Bisram was a full-time teacher in a high school in New York
The result of the end of the game was that Bisram was forced to send, since 2009, his phantom poll results as letters to the editors.
It is virtually impossible for the editors not to carry people’s letters. Once their opinions are not libelous and obscene and based on absolute fictional dates and places, then their views ought to be printed
The SN and KN carry weekly letter, for years now by a school of constant writers. The name Mervin and Maxwell are well known. So is Bisram. But Bisram’s poll letters raise important principles in journalism that the Stabroek News must reflect on. Mr. Bisram’s latest phantom poll was not carried in the letter pages of KN only in SN. Two letters by Bisram on his survey results were published by SN, one of which made the lead letter in one of the Sunday editions
How does Mr. Bisram differ from Mervin, Maxwell and others? Mervin and Maxwell are mere commentators offering an opinion on something.
This is not what Vishnu Bisram is doing. He is telling the editors that he has an organization and a form of employment which cannot be ascertained, which is
manifestly false. For that reason, the editor through the principle of authentic journalism has to edit out the fictional parts.
A simple example will suffice. Would the Stabroek News continue to publish letters by a surgeon who boasts of how many by-pass operations he had done at Divine Hospital on Young Street in Kingston? Once it was ascertained that he is not a surgeon and there is no Devine Hospital, then the principles of journalism come in and even if the fictional surgeon writes a letter and signs as a surgeon, that must be edited out
The Kaieteur News has left Mr. Bisram’s masquerade. It did not carry his letters about his recent political survey. But since then KN has published more than a dozen other missives by Bisram.
Those missives were his opinions on matters arising in Guyana. They had a right to be printed. It is time Stabroek does the same in relation to these fictional polls. Mr. Bisram is just laughing at the newspapers. I brought up the Bisram fictional poll fiasco with my organization, the Guyana Press Association and I will raise the matter again at its next general meeting. Should a newspaper continue to publish letters from a citizen about where he works and his type of operations when they are palpably untrue?
There is no organization in the world named NACTA that does surveys around the world. Mr. Bisram is not a full time teacher in any high school in New York. Now it is not for me to prove that. I have to prove who I say I am. I live in Turkeyen and work at the University of Guyana.
SN and KN know that. Mr. Bisram is going to reply to this letter. The KN and SN editors are going to read it. Nowhere will Mr. Bisram offer proof of his employment and the existence of NACTA. And this has been going on for eight years now. Not eight months but eight years. Mr. Bisram is just laughing at Guyanese journalism.
If Mr. Bisram claims that he is a professional pollster with NACTA and is employed as a high school teacher in New York, then surely SN is resourceful enough to track that information down. If it is not interested then that is fine. But where does that leave the principles of journalism in that a citizen continues to publicly publish information about his status that cannot be verified. Stabroek News needs to make a decision on the Bisram charade. Any self-respecting media house would.
I also refer to a letter by Mr. Mike Persaud (“Bisram did conduct surveys in Guyana” –SN, Aug 19) in which he stated; “Mr. Kissoon once sent an e-mail to the principal to Transit Tech inquiring about the presence of Mr. Bisram and the principal, Mr. Kalvar confirmed it.” This is not true. Mr. Persaud should analyse the mind of the person who told him this fiction. Why would they want to lie?
Years ago, I suspected that Mr. Bisram was not doing professional polling with an organization named NACTA and was not a high school teacher.
Also Mr. Bisram was writing wildly about universities he attended and the dozens of top professors that taught him. I became more suspicious when he did two things. First he said that he cannot disclose where he works because he had an experience of someone trying to get him fired. It was a nonsensical response for a man who was boasting of all the Indian organizations he was in and the work he does all over the world
Secondly, he promised my editor, Adam Harris he would provide proof of his employment but never did. All of this took place about four years ago. Someone told me about a high school he may have worked at.
I honestly cannot remember the name of the school and the principal I sent an email to. It could very well be Transit Tech and Mr. Kalvar. But I never heard back from the principal.
Instead I got an e-mail fro m Bisram which read; “So you are trying to find out where I work.” Let me repeat. I never received an e-mail from a man named Kalvar telling me where Bisram works. I do not believe Bisram is employed at Transit Tech. If Mr. Persaud is true to his conscience, he should try to find out where Bisram is staffed.
I don’t believe Mr. Bisram is employed. Maybe he was originally a teacher. Mr. Bisram wants to exist in the realm of public commentary and polling. But he feels he would not be listened to if he tells people that he does his own poll and has no official employment.
Mr. Bisram fears the inevitable – people do not respect those that are not employed. So he informs us that he is a teacher and he was taught by all these learned professors. He invented NACTA. If he says he finances his own surveys, no one will listen. So he seeks credibility by saying that NACTA employs him to do their field work
The clue to what Bisram is was provided some years ago by a subtle passing by Ravi Dev. Dev wrote about Bisram’s success in real estate. Maybe Bisram has properties with a good income but his obsession with social commentary makes him invent a fictional organization and a non-existent employment.
As to his daily outpourings in the Chronicle saying all kinds of nasty things, I just ignore them and I hardly read the Chronicle. And his weekly responses in the Kaieteur News to my writings, I am not bothered by that. He has a right to express the way he feels about opinion-makers. What is totally unacceptable are his fictional polls. The media should not publicize them because they are not done professionally.
Frederick Kissoon

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