Targeting the private media

Oct 08, 2013 Editorial

Yesterday, the General Secretary of the ruling People’s Progressive Party, Clement Rohee, said that the government may need to consider a body to oversee the functioning of the news media. He said that his government believes in the free press but that the same press is denying people the right to make informed decisions when it withholds information.
Had this been a general statement, then the public would not have been able to disagree with Rohee, who is also the Minister of Home Affairs. The Political opposition parties have for as long as one can remember, been complaining about the inability for them to access the public through the state media.
Things reached a head when the Parliamentary Opposition, for two consecutive years, slashed the budgetary allocations to the government-owned National Communications Network and the Government Information Agency. They all contended that the two state-owned media entities were functioning to the exclusion of the opposition.
Presentations by the Opposition were ignored. In fact, it had to take a media code of conduct to ensure that the Opposition got time on the state media but even then, the negative publicity directed against the opposition far outweighed the positives. Broadcast in favour of the Opposition was seriously skewed.
By the same token the private media selectively reported on things political in favour of the ruling party. Again, politicians spout rhetoric and the media is about valid news and information. Things governmental receive expansive coverage in the private media which also helps to keep the very government in check in the face of excesses.
Rohee now says that the private media deny the public the right to form critical opinions by not publishing the views of the PPP and the politicians. He was at pains to say that one newspaper took pains to be present at the press conferences hosted by the PPP but reports on nothing. He accused another of distorting the news and of seeking sensationalism.
Someone not au fait with the media in Guyana would not recognize that the government has access to the greatest number of media houses in the country. It has access to two television stations that broadcast the news, two newspapers—the Guyana Times and Guyana Chronicle—and the largest radio station in the country and the only one that broadcasts a newscast.
The Opposition must rely on two privately-owned newspapers –Stabroek News and Kaieteur News—which also open their pages to the government and to the ruling party; and three television stations that broadcast a newscast—Capitol News, Prime News and HGTV.
It therefore boggles the mind that Minister Rohee could claim that the public is denied information that could help people form a considered opinion. If Rohee feels that the government should have control over every media entity in the country then he must say so.
But we come to the proposed media monitoring entity. Media agencies are best at monitoring themselves. More often than not they can apply sanctions against themselves to the extent that the penalty appears excessively harsh.
It has not escaped notice that when the government wants to silence an Opposition it descends harshly on the Opposition to the point of arresting the leaders and silencing them. These governments also close down newspapers and radio and television stations.
Of course, the democratic world says nothing. It is as though it is prepared to let even the most undemocratic of governments do as it pleases within its own borders. Rohee must have seen this and has become enamoured with the thought of silencing the private media.
But looking at the other side of the coin, the wider society is aware of every aspect of national life either through the media or through meetings with the politicians at the various fora, some organized by the very political parties.
There is another side to all this. It must be that the private media command the lion’s share of the public attention and Rohee is not too happy that people have taken a conscious decision to follow what is contained in the private media.

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Targeting the private media

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