The fight for press freedom

Oct 12, 2013 Editorial

There is an interesting development in Guyana at this time. It seeks to confirm that just about everything, including the highest forum in the land is politicized. Of course this is not unique to Guyana where many freedoms are allowed to be enjoyed untrammeled.
For example, there is freedom of expression which the world recently found out is not extended to certain democracies, including the Netherlands where the law now states that it is illegal to insult the king. The penalty is some quality time in jail.
In neighbouring Venezuela and in Zimbabwe the state has the power to close those media houses that appear to be in opposition to the government. Those governments claim that they are acting in the interest of the people. Fortunately, there is no such law in Guyana because one is certain that the government would have used it to good effect. Many private media houses would have been ordered closed.
We saw how the government reacted to the reports in sections of the media about the lack of disclosure on some of the major projects in this country. The Amaila Falls project was unquestionable the most controversial and when it folded the government blamed the media, something that some reporters still find disturbing.
Perhaps, had the nation as a whole risen up against the programme and waged a series of protest, as was the case in Rwanda when remarks on a radio station led to pone of the most horrific sets of killings that could only have been described as genocide. Of course, the international community later prosecuted the perpetrators.
In Guyana where the government, up until the liberalization of radio, owned the only radio station in Guyana and one of four daily newspapers as well as a television station and a large media entity called the Government Information Agency the issue of freedom could not be questioned. Indeed, the political opposition complained that they had no access to radio and actually had to petition for access to radio.
It was not until the private media began to play advertisements aired by parties other than the government that the government began to talk about fairness of broadcasts. It was worse when the government controlled all the public media houses. Opposition parties had to petition the courts for access to the state-owned media.
Because of the apparent firm government control information and its use of the media, the private media houses fiercely guarded their freedom to help the so called disadvantaged. Today the government is claiming that its report is not contained in reports disseminated by the private media houses.
Even in the United States the media are known to support one political group or the other but the news is always the news—an unbiased report of events but sometimes slanted to suit the perception of the news media. There is no talk about monitoring to force the private media to broadcast what is disseminated by the government. One can understand why the Guyana Government feels that it must be the prominent factor in every newscast but it will never be.
However, the government now talks about media monitoring. There was media monitoring in Guyana and the reports from the media monitoring body showed that the government media was the biggest violator. Immediately the government moved to disband the media monitoring unit. But such is the desire to control everything that the government through the Government Information Agency is monitoring every newscast broadcast by sections of the private media. These reports are forwarded to Office of the President and those bodies that the ruling party determines must keep an eye on the news.
Now we notice that things have been taken a step further. The political elements in Government are now using state resources to persecute the private media. There is a systematic targeting of all the government critics. This too is an indication that Guyana is moving rapidly to become a dictatorship.

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The fight for press freedom

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