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WAS THERE A LEAK WITHIN THE US EMBASSY?

Jul 21, 2014 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

You learn a great deal from examining the comments that some media practitioners make on social networks. In many instances, these comments reveal the high degree of unprofessional conduct, the biases and the prejudices of these men and women of the media.
It is striking that many of our journalists have never taken up an appointment with any regional or international media corporation. We do have highly professional and competent journalists in Guyana who can hold their own in any regional or international media houses.
But some of our journalists, some of whom consider themselves amongst the cream of the crop in Guyana, would find it difficult to land a job with a regional or international media corporation.
Media houses now have a variety of sources to use to scrutinize applicants for positions in their companies. If some of the journalists in Guyana ever had to apply for a job with these companies, they would find it difficult to get the job. You see their public posts on social media represent a record of their thoughts and opinions and these will be scrutinized by the interviewing authorities to determine if these journalists can be considered objective and professional.
Some bloggers recently expressed concerns about the comments of one media personality in Guyana who accused a judge of a reality TV show of being biased. No evidence was presented as to why this judge of a song contest was biased, except that the journalist did not agree with the judge’s decision.
Now when international and regional media houses do their background checks and they read these unsubstantiated comments, they are going to give a second thought to employing anyone with such a record.
There are many journalists in Guyana who lay bare on social networks their biases and grudges. This immediately calls into question whether they can be trusted to provide an objective and fair reporting on certain matters.
And sometimes some journalists take on the role of advocates for parties to a story that they are reporting.  Take for example the spat between the Minister of Education and the former United States ambassador. This seemed to have upset many local journalists who could not control their emotions. Their comments went viral when they put them social networks.
But what really was disturbing was when on one social network, a local journalist went as far as revealing the US passport number of a minister of the government. Now this was a most disturbing and unethical practice. There was no reason for the journalist to have made public the US passport number of a Guyanese minister. But this was done on a social network for no justifiable reason.
The media association of Guyana has said nothing about this development which has exposed the minister to possible identity theft. The publication of the passport number of the minister who it must be said had nothing to do with what happened at the US anniversary cocktail reception also constituted an invasion of the minister’s privacy.
What should be explained is just how the journalist got hold of the passport number of the minister’s US passport and why in this age of identity theft was this made public. The United States Embassy in Guyana should clarify whether it provided the information to the journalist concerned.
Indeed the United States Embassy should indicate whether it had any role in the release of the details of the US passport of the Guyanese minister so as to assure the public and its citizens that details of passports are kept confidential by the US Embassy in Guyana.
It should as a matter of urgency investigate whether there was any leak from within its embassy of the details of the passport of the Guyanese minister who is a United States citizen and who is entitled to protection by the embassy.
The journalist concerned should be asked to explain why he saw it necessary to publish the private information of a US citizen and what relevance it had to the reporting of the spat between the former US diplomat and another government Minister.

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