The media must respect itself

Jan 27, 2018 Peeping Tom

The media must not allow itself to be used. There are a number of state agencies which host events and which would like those events to be covered by the media. As such, they dispatch invitations for coverage but want to control what aspects are covered by the media.
This is exactly what happened with the Annual Officers’ Conference of the Guyana Defence Force. The media was invited to cover the opening of the conference but in reality what the GDF wanted was only coverage of the President’s address.
This is insulating practice by many state organisations which want media coverage but only for specific purposes. The media, however, do not wish to be so controlled and so they rebel against it.
The grouse in the relation to the Annual Officers’ Conference of the GDF was that the media turned up on time, were put to wait and by the time they were allowed to cover the opening, the main speaker, the President had already begun to speak. Therefore they felt insulted and left.
The media is not blameless. They have allowed themselves to be manipulated. Part of the problem with the media is that they have become extremely reliant on press releases issued by the government. They rewrite these releases and carry them as news rather than covering the event.
The Ministry of the Presidency and the Department of Public Information, formerly the Government Information Agency (GINA), issue releases almost daily about public engagements of the President and Ministers. The media does not always cover all of these events since they have grown accustomed to rewriting the government official releases.
The whole thing has become something of a joke. The Ministry of the Presidency reports on even the most trivial of meetings held by the President. These events become photo-opportunities which are then sent out to the media which seem all too satisfied to carry them, without any consideration given to the fact that they should be covering those events.
As such, the media has become dependent on releases. This is the basis of many of their stories on the government. A certain degree of dependency is developing. Journalists have become lazy and many are content on regurgitating the releases issued by the government.
The government is smart enough to recognise this condition. It knows that many media operatives are lazy and are just waiting to gobble up their releases rather than go out there and get their own stories. So the state media spoon feeds many of the private media houses, making them reliant and dependent on what the government releases.
It is the same situation with the opposition. The opposition is using the media to get its positions over. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it is now become something of a practice in which the opposition, PPPC hosts a press conference every week. The media is all too willing to report what the opposition states at its press conference.
Recently, the Guyana Press Association asked for assistance in visiting the border areas. This is an inexplicable proposal. The Guyana Press Association has no reason to ask the government to arrange for them to visit those areas. What do they expect that the government will do, other than have a controlled environment?
The media needs to become less reliant on the government. It needs to use its own resources to cover the border areas. It should not be asking government for any such assistance.
It is unfortunate how the media was treated by the Guyana Defence Force during the recent conference. Those who walked out did the right thing but they must be careful also of not believing that they are more important than the story they are covering. They are not.
If the media wants respect, it has to begin by respecting itself. The first step is to reduce their reliance on government releases and trying to attend every little event to which they are invited.

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