The scorching EU Elections Observer report

Jun 10, 2020 Editorial

The EU’s Elections Observer Final Report is scorching in its pointed references. The one saving grace was the “fair reporting by Kaieteur News and Stabroek News” with a couple of other media outlets specifically named and put to shame. We will take that rare positive, while we highlight that from which we think we should work hard to get some more. There are eight priority recommendations in the EU’s observer report, and today we focus on the media, how it was evaluated, and what needs to be done to fix it.
Sections of the media came in for dishonourable mention in the EU report on Guyana’s elections. Specific entities were hauled over the coals for partisanship, irresponsibility, and failing to exemplify objective journalistic standards. It confirms what is widely known and believed in many corners, particularly of state-owned media. Accordingly, much emphasis is placed today on the state-controlled media.
Regardless of which political group governs, the state media is largely converted to a virtual propaganda arm of that group. This has been the history of the state media in Guyana, where taxpayers’ dollars are used to indoctrinate, pressure, or mislead and push citizens around. On the one hand, adversaries are attacked, and critics silenced, with almost all dissenting voices blocked out. On the other hand, the ruling group’s positions and messages are allowed room and opportunity to dominate thinking and influence swaying; it is given the freest access and the greatest space. This is never more obvious than during the run-up before elections; especially in the aftermath of elections results, with much intensifying of tensions and existing racial divisions.
This norm has been the troubling history of state media in Guyana, used for provocative and cunning political objectives, unashamed and unapologetic objectives. No political group at the helm has been principled, democratic, and idealistic enough to ever escape this blemish, and this elections season has been overflowing. The report noted “considerable bias” in both the privately owned Guyana Times and the state-owned Guyana Chronicle. Though professional courtesy frowns about commenting negatively on sister entities, media obligations do not mandate giving a total free pass, given there is documented notice from a reputable international body that things are poor, and require addressing.
In terms of what should be done to remedy defective state-owned media, it is helpful to quote the EU’s third priority recommendation in full: “Introduce a legal and regulatory system that transforms the state-owned media into a genuine public service broadcaster. This includes provisions granting editorial independence, financial autonomy, clear separation from any government institution, and an open and competitive selection process of its board members.” In that single recommendation, we picked up seven improvement steps which, if taken, could lift state-owned media bodies-oral or written, physical or cyber-from they are and put them on a better footing. Private media should listen and implement a thing or two, such as “editorial independence” and (possibly) outside board members. Only positives follow when such elements become the norm. The media, private or public, has an awesome and thankless responsibility: it must be faithful to truth and accuracy. Despite the personal preferences of practitioners, those must be superseded always by the calling to communicate from the critical to the constructive, and nothing else in between.
State media (and private ones also) must be legally and regulatorily equipped to not participate (to say NO) in what is the equivalent of a local political arms race with the media as willing ally. This cannot continue to be so, where each side uses the media at its disposal to deploy verbal missiles intended to deter, to deny, or to demonize the other side. The media, whether state or private, must not be recruited as knowing partners where opposing sides try to damage and outdo opponents with the outrageous.
In Shakespeare’s King Lear, one passage captures vividly the despair of the betrayed monarch, as seen through the eyes of another: “As flies to wanton boys are we to gods; they kill us for their sport”. Local political gods use public and private media as sport, through which to kill the voices of the others; they kill the prospects of Guyana. The EU warned: cease and desist.

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