“Thrown to the sharks!” How two years at Kaieteur News changed me for the better

Aug 03, 2020 News

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By Kemol King

I didn’t even want to be a journalist when I started at Kaieteur News. It was not a prideful career to me. To many, it still isn’t. However, last Tuesday marked two years since I started working here, and I can now boast a healthy pride in being a reporter, and in my own work.
I had been told that even though I showed promise in writing, there is no career for a writer in Guyana. After all, how many local Rick Riordans or JK Rowlings could you name if you sat down and tried to?

I have done many features on young creatives who lament that the local environment is neither welcoming nor conducive to the development of vibrant young talent. I still think so. Be that as it may, Kaieteur News has given me the tools and the space to flourish.
Reporting was a suggestion, but the word was that reporters are not paid well. There is no journalism programme in Guyana, so most of the reporters in Guyana are not formally trained for the profession.
“Use your brains on something more fruitful,” people would say.
Coming to this newspaper was something I stumbled onto in 2018. I was unemployed, and a friend told me “Just apply.”
I remember my first day stepping through the glass doors on July 28 and meeting up with Glen Lall, but not knowing who Glen Lall is. He was nonchalant; asked what I needed and helped me find the person I was looking for.
I only later realised who he was when a senior in the editorial department later told me that I should speak with the publisher.
“That’s Glen Lall?” I had asked, surprised, suddenly beginning to worry if I was respectful enough to the man who turned out to be my boss.
He was intense. Every young reporter who walked through KN’s doors would tell you how Lall and the atmosphere intimidated them. He has a fire in his belly that he doesn’t hesitate to let loose in full force, even if you’re new.
I heard from the editorial department that the newspaper has a high turnover.
Who’d have thought that being a writer would be so intense?
Every afternoon, at about 3pm, all the reporters, editors and the publisher would congregate on the ground floor and discuss what we’re giving the people the next day.
If you are full of passion and have a drive to succeed in the career, you’d excel.
Every few months, Kaieteur News would hire about five mostly young people. As the weeks went by, some would pick themselves up and leave, because they wouldn’t perform or because they just couldn’t handle the pressure. Every now and then, the pressure produces a diamond.
There were people who thought that I would be one to leave. My speech was too proper. I was too soft. I didn’t carry myself in a manner that told people I could handle harsh words, or fear, or all of the threats I’ve had to endure over the past few months.

Then, when I got robbed on the job in November of 2018, they thought that surely I would fall away. I had gone out with two of my then colleagues to cover the Courts Christmas Tree Light-Up. I remember walking back to Stabroek Market on the Avenue of the Republic and seeing these five young men on a corner watching us pass by.
As I walked, I saw in the corner of my eye that they began to step toward us. I hadn’t even opened my mouth fully to say “Run!” to the young women I was with, when I felt an arm swing around my neck to drag me into a chokehold on the ground. It’s not as bad as it seems. When I felt myself being pulled to the ground, I realised the best way out was compliance. I could not fight five men, so I allowed them into my pockets and they left.
This is not a unique experience. Every other friend I have could recall an experience of being accosted and robbed. Little did I know, there were much more traumatic experiences in store for me.
However, I mention it to say that after a colleague told me more recently, “We thought you would have walked off after that,” I realised that I was the only one left of my batch of five. I was the diamond.
Writing always came easy for me. It was the content that was difficult to consolidate, in the beginning. There is a method of teaching at Kaieteur News called ‘being thrown to the sharks’. You are handed a computer, newspapers to read, and you’re expected to come up with exciting breakthrough stories that fit the very special niche of the publisher.
Lall would call the new reporters up to his office and give them talks about the work the paper has done over the years, and about how those experiences have informed Kaieteur’s love of country and its sustained opposition to corruption. Discussions tend to centre around the rights of the people and the wealth of their patrimony. This is what drives the newspaper.
Lall would say things like “Keep your eyes on the money.” or “You gotta know it in yuh belly.”
In time, you begin to feel it in your belly too. As a reporter, you learn to have a healthy skepticism about everything. With Kaieteur News, you become militant.
In December of 2018, I was fortunate enough that one of my editors allowed me to do an opinion piece on being a young journalist covering Parliament.

It was the very same month that Charandass Persaud notoriously went against the grain and said “Yes.” to a motion of no-confidence against the APNU+AFC Government.
In my op-ed, the first thing that struck me was how completely uncivilised and chaotic a Parliament of this country’s leaders would get. The following excerpt from the piece sums it up: “Experiencing it up close was eye-opening. The Speaker of the House had cause to, on multiple occasions, reprimand MPs from both sides on their conduct, which constitutes hurling objects and insults at each other from across the table, mocking speeches with obnoxious laughter, and scrolling through social media or online shopping sites while speeches are being delivered. Is this what we’re paying these people for?”
The uncivillity tended to pair itself with obnoxious pretense.
“There’s a lot of pretense in parliament, and very little authenticity.” I had written. That statement continues to prove itself, and these are the messages that would go on to shape, without end, my outlook as I grew as a political reporter.
When a senior colleague left Kaieteur News early in the following year, I had to fall into the routine of covering the weekly press conferences of a certain politician.
I would become very confused every now and then when I left the press conference thinking that my question was answered, only to realise that it wasn’t. The individual has a clever way of responding but not answering your questions, yet making you feel as though he did.
Months of listening to this politician go on and on about various issues, gave me valuable tools to decipher platitudes from sincerity— truth from misinformation.
As I later learned, I would need these tools if I was going to effectively cover elections 2020 as well as oil and gas. Here’s the thing. Both major parties have made monumentally frustrating moves in their management of Guyana’s oil and gas sector. From sneakily signed away blocks to lopsided contract terms, there is little to be happy about, in that regard. What’s there to look forward to, is what Guyana has out there under the ocean is the envy of the world and the jewel in the crown of ExxonMobil. That can be leveraged to make sure the people of this country get the best value for their resource, but our leaders don’t seem eager to assume that advantage. It makes you wonder.

All my coverage of Guyana’s budding oil sector led me to conclude very early on that these elections would be contentious and eventful. The promise of fortune and fame for Guyana, took the greed of this country’s leaders to a whole new level.
During the recount, misinformation came down under the media tent – otherwise known as the media abattoir – like rain. The Guyanese public was treated with repetitive postings on Facebook and chain messages on Whatsapp, most of them mischievously titled “BREAKING NEWS!”
But none of them were actually journalists, and the rhetoric would either be patently false or wildly exaggerated. This was the tide my colleagues and I faced as we swam through a sea of misinformation.
Of all the challenges, this election was probably the most telling. Some reporters unfortunately allowed themselves to be roped into the misinformation campaign. Others held the fort.
I don’t wonder whether it was enough. I know it wasn’t. It is easy for a sensational lie to be planted in one corner of the internet and spread to hundreds, or thousands of persons in the country. By the time you dispel it at the source, the damage has already been done, and many people who know better choose to go on believing because they find it more comforting than the truth. Besides, the people who orchestrated the lies will continue to tell them.
There had been several attempts to rig the elections. That is the truth. The international community has come down in unanimity on Guyana, and the posturing of the coalition resulted in people throwing around words usually reserved for our neighbour to the west – like “sanctions” and dictatorship.”
I had a front row seat to all of this. There were many folks I looked up to when this election began. I can no longer say the same. It was heartbreaking to watch.
An excerpt from a Facebook post I made as the recount ended, I think, sums up what this saga has been and continues to be for many reporters: “After being exposed to months of continuous physical and mental strain under the shadow of a deadly pandemic, intimidation, veiled threats to my safety, intensified public scrutiny, betrayal, a mountain of lies and misinformation that I had to stand up to, and the realization that the world is a lot more evil than I thought it was, my nerves are frayed and I am tired in a way that just can’t be fixed with sleep or a few days off.”
At the time of posting this, I was hoping that the process would resolve itself right there and then. But it took two months more of waiting on sidewalks for hours, and running around in sun and rain for a President to be sworn in, and it is finally over. Many of my colleagues will need professional help and healing.
It has not been fun, but I am a better journalist because of the experiences I have had in the past five months. The past two years, moreover, have landed me comfortably into the profession of journalism. And I am here to stay.

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