These weekly press conferences are an abuse of press freedom

Jul 22, 2023 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – A practice has developed in Guyana whereby the country’s two main political parties resort to press conferences to respond to their critics. This I believe distorts the purpose and utility of a press conference and converts the media into a tool for partisan purposes.

The mainstream media should reconsider their participation in the weekly press conferences hosted by the PNCR and the PPP/C.  If the media continues to allow itself to be summoned to press conferences that are about responding to criticisms, the media will find itself in a position in which it will be agents of its own decay.

The country’s two main political parties are now holding regular, almost weekly press conferences. For the Opposition, their press conferences are held virtually and are used to express their concerns about the manner in which the country is being administered.

On the other hand, the ruling PPPC uses its press conferences expressly to respond to what was said at the Opposition press conference and other criticisms made against the PPP/C.

Both of the country’s main political parties have a right to do this. But to ask the press corps to turn up or tune in every week to listen to the political parties go at the other, constitutes an abuse of the press conferences.

What the country’s two main political parties have to say to and about each other are matters, no doubt, of public interest. But those issues can be ventilated through press releases and statements rather than press conferences. The media should not have to attend weekly press conferences simply to listen to these parties attacking each other.

As expressed before, press conferences are usually held to address some matter of national importance and to provide information on an issue of topical importance. They are not to be abused by becoming forums for politicking or for merely responding to criticisms of the government.

But that is exactly what Jagdeo has turned his usual weekly press conference into. And he makes no secret of this. At his press conference on Thursday, for example, he made it clear that the purposes of him sustaining his weekly press conference was because the PPPC needed to “kill some of the rumours that this country has grown accustomed to [and that are] being pedaled by the Opposition and their affiliates.”

Just prior to launching his weekly press conferences, Jagdeo had called on his supporters to respond to critics of the government on social media. The weekly press conferences therefore represented a political blitz of a party and government which under siege by its critics.

Should the media be conscripted to providing a forum for this sort of propaganda from Jagdeo? And should it have to attend the weekly press conferences by the Opposition?

The media has to demonstrate greater self-respect. It cannot allow itself to be manipulated by the country’s two main political parties in this way. If those parties want to get out information weekly, they should do so via press releases not via a weekly press conference.

But one can appreciate also the eagerness of some members of the media to attend these weekly press conferences. They do so because they want to be afforded the opportunity to ask questions.

The editors of mainstream media need to take a decision on these weekly press conferences. They should strongly suggest that the PPPC and the PNCR submit press statements rather than the media have to be summoned weekly to listen to political exchanges between these two parties.

When the political parties devote their precious time to mainly countering criticism, as Jagdeo does weekly, it diverts attention from the pressing national issues. It provides the appearance of transparency but the press conferences become platforms for political tantrums.

The sort of broadsides which Jagdeo unleashes against his critics can have the effect of discouraging dissent from the faint-hearted. This is disturbing for a party which claims that it fought for the return and defence of democracy. Public discourse is considered as a characteristic of a healthy democracy, and attacking criticisms can undermine public discourse.

The media should strongly suggest, through editorial comments, that the political parties issue more press statements. Press conferences should be reserved for important announcements and issues.

The media should equally insist on greater access to public officials. One of the reasons why journalists are so eager to attend press conferences is because such access if lacking. This is a systemic problem within the government and no amount of press conferences by Jagdeo is going to solve this problem.

Many years ago, a gentleman was launching his political party at the National Library. Only one journalist turned up. That was not fair to the gentlemen. But perhaps this is the treatment that is needed to be administered to some of our political leaders who feel that they summon a press conference, the media has to jump and rush to attend.

(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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• developed, Freedom, Peeping Tom, PNCR, press

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