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I’m buying some journalism books for Clement Rohee

Aug 11, 2020 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Clement Rohee has a letter in the August 1, edition newspapers. When you read it, you cannot help but think that Rohee is still to learn a lot about an aspect of life in which he has fifty years of experience – politics
While Mingo and Lowenfield were rigging the 2020 election in March, it was in that month Rohee became 70 years of age. Surely, Rohee must understand a thing or two of how society operates. I think I will buy a few books on journalism for him.
To understand some of the things Rohee forgot along the way, let’s quote him. He writes: “Harris and Glenn Lall were bound to fall out. It was only a matter of time. Lall is a pragmatist, Harris is dogmatist….When the chips are down Lall would adjust politically and go with the flow. After all, he has a newspaper to sell. He must take into account the circulation of his newspaper and the innovations of his competitors.”
I would advise readers to place emphasis on the following assertions of Rohee, “go with the flow”, “has a newspaper to sell,” and “innovations of his competitors”. Rohee is simply saying that Lall must take into account the circulation of his newspaper and what his competitors are up to in relation to what Harris is doing at the paper because after all, he has a newspaper to sell. Rohee fails to take into account all newspapers must operate within basic philosophical guidelines. All have done so. All are doing so. All must do so.
Newspapers and television stations have to encapsulate some fundamental norms that underpin post 20th century civilization. There are norms and values that guide human behaviour and newspapers, as an obligation to civilized life, must insert them into the newspaper’s overall conceptualizations.
It is outside the scope of this column to offer an enumeration of what these norms and values are but obviously some priceless ones stand out – anti-racism, equality of gender, recognition of the functions of laws in society, people’s right to vote for a government of their choice, etc.
The discontinuation of the columns of Harris then Lincoln Lewis and David Hinds is a huge contradiction of what Rohee wrote. It was not based on Kaieteur News’ observation on how its rivals are thinking. One can argue that the likely competitor with the Kaieteur News is the Stabroek News.
I made reference in one of my previous columns (Monday, July 13, 2020, “Election rigging: Faces of dangerous journalism.”) to the editorial position of the New York Times when recently it dropped an Op-Ed piece by Republican senator, Tom Cotton. The senator stated that Trump was right to reflect on the need to call in the army to quell nationwide protest. The paper explained that this was against what it stands for.
A newspaper cannot think of publishing an opinion piece that justifies the rigging of an election in which citizens’ votes were thrown away and as a result, an unelected group will rule indefinitely. While Lewis and Hinds were advised that the Kaieteur News policy was against journalism that supports election rigging, what its competitor did was not taken into consideration because the Stabroek News had continued to publish Henry Jeffrey’s endorsement of the rigging.
It is unfortunate that Rohee can reduce the obligation of Kaieteur News to certain fundamental values that humans in the 21st century hold dear to the newspaper’s need to go with the flow so the newspaper could sell and thus keep one step ahead of its competitor. What, Jeffrey, Lewis and Hinds did was unthinkable and no newspaper in the world should permit them to go consistently on a tantrum inciting racial feelings and endorsing the most blatant, ugly and reprehensible rigging on a national election in the modern world. I cannot speak for Stabroek News in relation to Jeffrey, but the Kaieteur News tolerated Lewis and Hinds for far too long.
Here are some acts of Lewis and Hinds that should not find a place in any publication. Lewis wanted an election candidate in the 2020 poll, David Granger, to take action against the election body if that body declares a result that Granger doesn’t accept. In other words, Lewis was advocating that the loser in an election can scrap it. Hinds stated that if the CCJ rules against his party, the APNU, then it will be a political decision tantamount to a coup. Both of these PNC surrogates had contemptuously dismissed all the legal and constitutional rules that hold a civilized society together.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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