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May this media solidarity continue without fear or partisanship

May 16, 2020 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

I commend the media professionals, who rose to the occasion and took a powerful stance during a press gathering on Wednesday (KN May 13). At the very least, two objectives were achieved, with messages sent, both of which should resonate warningly into the future.
The first objective cum message was that we, the media representatives will stand together in support of a fellow practitioner trying to fulfill his or her duty professionally and appropriately, whether that practitioner is interpreted as being for or against. And the second related intent(s) was to signal that ranks will be closed when the questionable and the unacceptable occurs, regardless of the source. My hope is that such a laudable posture will be seen more, without regard to which media house is found disagreeable.
We need more of the critical here: temperate and balanced, but critical and revealing, nonetheless.
I think that Wednesday’s development has special significance in this era of raw, many times
unconcealed, partisanship. Although the state media and its agents come in for scorn and curses almost routinely, I am glad that there were those senior journalists, who were sufficiently exercised to stand and voice their disagreement with what took place and how it took place.
We have had too much of that in the past, those coarse and vulgar instances that I mistakenly thought were over. I keep trying to see the better angels in some, but I continue to fail, since even those have long abandoned some folks, no matter the public reimaging.
For what the senior media professionals did was to deliver their own ultimatum: it has to go this (our) way or no way. I am encouraged that somehow the better sense prevailed. My hope is that this sets the stage for things to come, where the members of the fourth estate will band together to ensure appropriately respectful and dignified treatment of their guild. We can disagree sharply, but we must never let matters diminish to the palpably dirty, the personally nasty. Rancor incurs more of the same in an uninterrupted cycle that obscures the purposes of such gatherings. We cannot, nor must we insist, that the narratives always align sweetly with what we hold out as truth and scripture.
On another note, I am concerned that after all the prattling about the ideals of democracy and the virtuous practices of democratic ways, that such malicious conduct could be exhibited so publicly and so spitefully. It was surprising, as I had erroneously believed that there was some learning, a little growing from the mistakes of before. So it is that we are back to the square one of what was always under the surface. I regret that in spite of all the cosmetic chattering, there was that unfortunate incident where the dagger is stuck deeply and twisted. It is disappointing in what it could promise for Guyana. It came too naturally, reflexively, with elements of the abusive obvious.
For if this happened on Wednesday, then what about later? What about those sturdy planks of the democracy professed to be so beloved? What about the role of a free press? Not as defined by me or anyone else, but as determined by some common standard that absorbs the critical, the obnoxious. I remind all about freedom of thought and freedom of expression; those freedoms apply also to the offensive.
I would be the first to acknowledge that presences in Guyana’s media sector are biased to the point of unabashed bigotry, due to the backwardness of sturdy partisanship that can be sorely trying. Some media output I would not use to wrap fish. Still, in sum, it is part of the territory of a free country not in name only, but in what should be the broadest norm. The bigoted and the partisan and the objectionable must all be tolerated and accommodated. It is the statesman like way that offers every courtesy even when under the most withering fire. The churlish and truculent deliver little that is positive. The mature is what the protocols and realities of democracy demand.
I wish that the media members did not feel compelled to rise as they did. I hope that a strong standard has been set.

Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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