KN at 25: Consequences of class and colour

Apr 07, 2019 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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This column is a summary of my presentation at the ceremony marking the 25th birth anniversary of the Kaieteur News held at the Pegasus on Thursday evening, April 4. Because of space, some aspects of my delivery will be omitted.
In my freshman year at UG, we had to read a book entitled, “Consequences of Class and Colour”. It was about life in post-colonial West Indian societies, and how the values of colonialism persisted. This book had a tremendous influence on the way I conceived of my country, and it still does, because Guyana has not changed.
For a brief moment, the Forbes Burnham epoch confronted the consequences of class and colour. But class and colour never died in post-colonial Guyana, and became the dominant values after the arrival of the post-Burnham economy, with neo-liberalism as its overriding characteristic. The emergence of the Kaieteur News heralded a new era of confronting the consequences of class and colour.
One of the unusual things in the history of the modern world is that newspaper operations have always been a process controlled by moneyed people. The nature of its operation dictated that. You have to buy a printing press, secure a large physical space, employ importantly skilled people. It takes a lot of money.
It is no accident then, that when newspapers emerged, they served the purpose of the capitalist system and the interests of the ruling classes, political and financial. It is no accident that the major newspapers and magazines in the US are owned by multibillion-dollar families and companies. The richest man in the world, Amazon’s owner Jeff Bezos, bought out the Washington Post.
It was no different in British Guiana. In the 20th century after World War 2, the three dominant newspapers – Argosy, Chronicle and Graphic – were all owned by big European/Portuguese companies. The Graphic was bought by Bookers. It needs no expanding note to tell you how those newspapers functioned in a British Guiana dominated by class and colour. Journalism in Guyana then served class and colour
The vicissitudes, vagaries, venalities, vendettas and vandalism of post-Independent Guyana conspired to allow a vanguardist government to buy out these three papers and collapsed them into one – the Guyana Chronicle. Journalism under the Forbes Burnham regime no longer served class and colour, but it was not the advent of independent, fearless, investigating journalism. Journalism after the disappearance of the three, conservative, middle class newspapers, served as a mouthpiece for an authoritarian regime.
The collapse of the economy in 1980 witnessed the demise of mainstream journalism in Guyana. But in 1986, journalism atavistically reverted to its pristine self, a private newspaper – the Stabroek News – was founded by an elitist Portuguese-owned law firm with a large grant from an arm of the American government – National Endowment for Democracy – designed to foster capitalist, right wing order in the Third World.
The Stabroek News also received generous help from a wealthy Trinidadian newspaper outfit. Not surprisingly, in its mission statement, the Stabroek said the role of the paper was to support a vibrant pirate sector. The consequences of class and colour were graphically emblazoned on its shirt sleeve. The paper was extremely conservative and governed by people embodying class and colour, and appealed to a narrow section of Guyanese society.
Kaieteur News (KN) was birthed by Mr. Glenn Lall, that time, a Stabroek Market vendor. With financial assistance from friends, family and a bank loan, the paper began its operation. KN confronted the consequences of class and colour in three ways. First, it brought journalism to sections of Guyanese society that wanted to read about other things. If a horse cart ran into a muddy trench and got stuck and ten persons went to pull it out, but the horse pulled them into the mud, KN made that a front-page item and photograph. At the same time, it kept its reporting on mainstream happenings that interested the middle and upper classes.
Secondly, it searched for a pool of talent outside the restrictions of class and colour. To date, not one editor, deputy editor or senior reporter has ever come from a middle class Georgetown suburb, or even the lower middle class structure. Thirdly, such kinds of people didn’t accept restrictions on investigative reporting, and in the process, put KN in the history pages of Caribbean journalism.
Everything you want to know about the Buxton conspiracy, the second most violent period after the civil strife in the sixties, can be found on the shelves of KN. It was KN’s phenomenal investigating that toppled the most corrupt and incestuous regime in the English-speaking Caribbean – the Jagdeo/Ramotar hegemony. Space has run out. Congratulations, Kaieteur News! Thanks for the opportunity you gave to me.

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