Private media is anathema to the government

Oct 13, 2011 Editorial

Confusion worst confounded. That is what anyone outside of Guyana looking in would say. This would be their reaction to the announcement by former Home Affairs Minister, former Health Minister and now Presidential Advisor that she proposes to seek the intervention of the United Nations to prosecute the local journalists for what she calls inciteful behaviour.
She is obviously echoing the words of President Bharrat Jagdeo who lashed out at the private media for what he called an assault against his government. He accused them of being supportive of the political opposition, particularly the larger ones. The accusations of the private media being supportive of the opposition could have been excused if it was only that.
But the Head of State went on to label the private media as vultures and as carrion crows. Needless to say, this is a most hostile statement that could see reporters being injured. We all know that there are sycophants and blind supporters of any party. These are people who care not one jot what the party does. It is a case of unconditional love.
These are the people who could take the words of the president seriously and develop a hatred for reporters. These are the people who would attack any reporter on sight. It has happened in the past. Reporters who were perceived to be hostile to the government were attacked. It is a miracle that none has been killed. Fr Bernard Darke was a photographer at a hostile pro-government forum. He was perceived to be anti-government and he died.
Reporters covering political meetings are equally at risk. If they belong to a media house that the president has singled out for abuse then these die-hard followers and supporters could attack the reporters if they perceived that they are doing the Head of State a favour.
What is surprising is that the party, of which President Jagdeo is a senior member, spoke of being supportive of a code of conduct for the elections. That code of conduct speaks of electioneering parties refraining from hostile and inciteful language. President Jagdeo may argue that neither he nor his party has signed a code of conduct.
Since the presidential outburst there have been people who have rallied to the defence of the reporters. Some have wittily said that the President may do well to think about the things that attract carrion crows and vultures. If as he says, the reporters target his government then the imagery is not in his best interest. People in the government can never be likened to carrion and offal.
There is another issue at work here. Both President Jagdeo and Presidential Adviser Gail Teixeira speak of seeking the help of the United Nations to prosecute reporters in Guyana. One would expect that if the reporters in Guyana breach the law the government has the power and every other thing at its resource to prosecute those very reporters.
There are laws. Even now, there are people before the courts on treason charges. If indeed reporters have set out to bring down the government and happened to be inciting people to do just that then there are the laws that would afford prosecution.
Something is not right here. Ms Teixeira seems to be sending a message that the government is not in control. She speaks of hostile media action in 1996 and 2001. But at no time was any such report made. The Media Monitoring Unit never filed such a report against the local media. If anything, it has been critical of the state-controlled media and their reporting.
In the run up to the 2006 elections, Mr. Tim Neale, the individual who headed the media monitoring exercise in Guyana had cause to go to the National Communications Network to halt a broadcast. He never had to do any such thing in the private media.
We suspect that something is afoot and it is not pleasant. We suspect that the government is seeking an excuse to attack the media with a view to shutting down all private media. Burnham used newsprint. This government has refused to liberalise radio. We are now seeing why. It could not prevent the expansion of television because there was already a vibrant private television enterprise by the time the government came into office.
What it did was close down licensing other private television stations but allowed the creation of government and party-sponsored television. We now understand. Private media is anathema to the government.

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