Response to Freddie on Rickey Singh

Sep 25, 2015 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Freddie Kissoon penned “Rickey Singh cannot walk in the shoes of Moses Nagamootoo” (Sep 7, 2015). Nagamootoo has enormous respect for Rickey as he is popularly called by Caribbean journalists, and he is primarily responsible for Rickey being a columnist with Chronicle since the restoration of democracy in 1992. Moses would disagree with Freddie whose comments about Rickey are nauseating. Freddie is involved in nasty, bitter, invective, vindictive commentaries lacking a sense of humility and decency as a writer and as someone who taught at a university. His comments about Rickey are personality based and lack objectivity, and he can never be compared with Rickey as a writer.
Freddie has failed to understand that even at his best, he is quite simply out of his depth and league with Rickey, even at the latter’s worst. Freddie desperately lacks common sense and social intelligence and is not qualified to make comments on Rickey Singh. He lacks the elementary ingredients of social grace, failing to offer sympathy to the man for the loss of his wife. Freddie lashed the man when he was burying his wife and still does to this day. What kind of person would engage in such low acts. Freddie is devoid of the capacity for empathy for others. And while criticizing others, Freddie has failed to see the subliminal, Freudian motives in his own comments on others. Rickey, on the other hand, is a forceful, eloquent journalist and a great Guyanese who epitomizes the culture and spirit of free journalism
I know Moses well, having collaborated with him in the revolution against Burnhamism. Freddie did not fight in that war; he was a recipient of a Burnham scholarship and as such could not criticize Burnham. Moses is a humble person and will never consider himself to be superior to an outstanding journalist like Rickey Singh. Moses is a hero for fighting Burnhamism. But so was Rickey who had to escape Guyana in the middle of the night in a flight to Barbados when he was informed that orders were given to eliminate him long before Moses became a political activist. And in fact, any objective commentator would recognize that Moses cannot be compared with Ricky. It is like comparing chalk and cheese. Yes Moses is an outstanding journalist. But Rickey is a reporter and columnist par excellence; there is no comparison with him anywhere in the Caribbean.
I travel to several meets (over the last twenty years) of Caribbean leaders and could not help but notice the deep admiration and respect journalists have for Rickey. They refer to him as the dean of journalism in the region probably because he is the longest serving reporter. Caricom leaders also displayed the greatest respect for the reporter. Rickey inspired journalists everywhere, including Moses when he broke into the field in the 1960s.
Rickey’s achievement in the media and his performance as a journalist has been exemplary. His columns have portrayed him as an informed and balanced commentator with strong commitment to independence. Guyana suffers grave deprivation when such talent is not excluded from the media through state (Moses) censorship or through petty political narrow mindedness and personality gripes coming from non-professionals Freddie.
The record would show that Freddie has been very unkind to Rickey attacking the iconic journalist in the most demeaning way even when the man was mourning the death of his wife days before the May general elections (belated sympathy to Rickey). Freddie calls the man an Indian racist, without offering any evidence, forgetting that the man’s wife was African, a marriage union that produced several ‘dougla’ children – how would that be racist.
Freddie lambasted Rickey because the man, as a professional, refused to attack the PPP, preferring to remain a balanced, objective reporter and columnist.  If Ricky had attacked Jagan or PPP, Rickey would be a hero. Freddie found everything about Jagan and the PPP government bad and questionable, except when he worked for it; once he collected money from the PPP or Jagan, the party or the man was good. The same holds true in his relationship with Moses. Freddie praised Moses for hiring him but attacked Mo for firing him from the job. Then he relentlessly attacked Mo for staying with the PPP but praised Mo when he broke with the party. He has been engaged in “hate and divisive” commentaries. His writing is despicable. That is why he was fired everywhere from the media.
Freddie cannot be compared with Rickey who is a balanced columnist. Freddie, in contrast, is infamously known as the leading news and data fabricator and a distorter of peoples’ views and opinions. He proudly, but effortlessly and savagely has bent the lines of logic beyond limits, over-stretching the lines of reason. Freddie’s commentaries are loaded with subjective observations without supporting information. He rehashes myths and legends as thought and they contain no valid recommendations. Freddie is the epitome of everything media do not need or want. He is the face that comes to mind when we think of anything bad in a society. He is everything vile and sordid. In his writings, he has fed utter distortion to the population. He does not serve the interests of readers. He serves his personal interest. Freddie is guilty of engaging in philistine, crude, cruel and crazy behavior. He acts in an uncouth and uncivilized manner. Freddie should heed the scholarly critiques of his writings.
Rickey, unlike Freddie holds the shield of ‘journalistic integrity’.
Freddie criticizes all and sundry without foundation and sees the failings of all, but he fails to see the inner sickness in his behavior and his own wrongs. Freddie is wrong to attack Rickey as much as Moses was wrong for interfering with Rickey’s writings. I am surprised Moses did, if in fact he did given his respect for journalist freedom. Moses and readers have the highest esteem and appreciation for the work of Rickey Singh. Freddie has it wrong, it is Moses who cannot walk in the shoes of Rickey in the field of journalism.
Vishnu Bisram

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