10 articles on journalism in Guyana for the US Ambassador to read

Jan 17, 2023 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Kaieteur News – Before 2022 ended, the US Ambassador, Mrs. Sarah-Ann Lynch, in talking about her embassy’s work in Guyana pointed to training for journalists so they could ask the hard questions.

The envoy did not expand on what she meant by “hard questions.” The term is common in journalism and connotes the use of factual journalism to confront the interviewer who is either sparse with the facts, offering alternative facts, ignoring the well established facts or evading the facts altogether.

What the hard question means therefore is that the interviewer simply reminds the interviewee of the reality so that the readers and the viewers can be given an additional insight into the mind of the interviewee.

The examples are literally countless. Here is a hypothetical one. The movie director says to the journalist that he likes working with the actor, Jim Jones because of his temperament. It is incumbent on the journalist to tell the director that three of Jim Jones’ co-stars issued statement about finding him difficult to work with. It is incumbent on the journalist to ask the hard question because that is what journalism is all about. The ambassador is right that she expects the hard questions to be asked. But in Guyana, our journalist have a convenient approach to the hard question.

The most mediocre performance I have seen in Guyana’s journalism in my 34 years in the media occurred in the Stabroek News in which the hard question was completely ignored by the journalist. It occurred in the May 1, 2021 edition of the newspaper. It is easy to obtain by a Google search. Ms. Miranda La Rose interviewed the General Secretary of the Trade Union Congress, Mr. Lincoln Lewis. Mr. Lewis was expansive on the lack of democracy in Guyana, the government’s refusal to acknowledge Article 13 of the Constitution, the bullying attitude of the government among other subjects.

Ms. La Rose chose not to ask the hard question. Democracy is the right to vote and have your vote counted. Twenty-two months before Ms. La Rose did that interview, here is what Mr. Lewis said publicly when the fiasco of the March 2020 election was in full swing; “If GECOM cannot declare election on credible votes or declarations never challenged or deemed invalid in a court of law, then Mr. President, it behoves you to cancel these elections. You have the power, you have the right to so do… Mr. President, for the good of Guyana, her laws and people, cancel these elections.”

Those words were made in a radio interview with Mark Benschop on July 28, 2020 and repeated the next day in the Chronicle newspaper. Ms. La Rose did not bring that up with Mr. Lewis. Also, we don’t know if Ms. La Rose knew at the time that there is no law and no section of the constitution that gives the President the legal right to cancel the results of a national election. Also, to note is the fact that the President himself was a contestant in that very election.

Neil Marks of Newsroom chose not to ask the hard question to Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine. In the interview, Roopnaraine waxed lyrical on his friendship with the late Dr. Walter Rodney even becoming maudlin with his memories. Marks did not ask Roopnaraine why he refused to testify at the Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry and why he voted in Parliament against the public release of the findings.

If you make a comparison in this country with all the professions including teaching, medicine, law, engineering, accounting, etc., journalism is billions of miles behind in competence and performance. It is a regrettable retrogression in Guyana. The American Ambassador has days left before she leaves this country. I have never seen her in person much less talk to her. I may never ever see her or talk to her. But, before she leaves Guyana, here are ten articles of mine for her to read on the state of journalism in this country. They extend over a period of over a dozen years:

1- Thursday, April 21, 2010, “Guyana: Gutter journalism in a fascist environment.”

2-Tuesday, September 21, 2010, “This is Guyana: The story of investigative journalism.”

3 -Thursday, October 21, 2010, “Plagiarism in Guyanese journalism.”

4-Sunday, September 20, 2015, “Notes on a journalistic journey.” 

5- Saturday, August 12, 2017, “Politics and journalism in a dead zone.” 

6 -Saturday, December 9, 2017, “Questions journalists must ask the AFC leadership.”

7-Saturday, June 9, 2018, “Guyana’s pathetic state of journalism.”

8-December 21, 2019, “Guyana: The poverty of journalism, journalism’s poverty.”   

9-Monday, July 13, 2020, “Election rigging: Faces of dangerous journalism.”

10-Wednesday, May 11, 2022, “The mediocrity of Guyana’s journalism has no global counterpart.”

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

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• Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine, Freddie Kissoon, journalism, Mrs. Sarah-Ann Lynch, Neil Marks of Newsroom, US Ambassador

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