Govt. and the media

Aug 29, 2024 Editorial

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Kaieteur News – On Wednesday one of our columnists Peeping Tom put the spotlight on the government’s resort to attacking the two privately- owned newspapers, Kaieteur News and Stabroek News and pointed out how grossly biased the national broadcaster, NCN and the Guyana Chronicle have been.

The columnist added that the independent newspapers, Kaieteur News and Stabroek News, by giving voice to government critics, perform a vital service: holding power to account, and providing a platform for those marginalised by the government’s narrative. The column added that were it not for these outlets, the voices questioning the government’s actions on a range of issues would be drowned in a sea of state-sanctioned propaganda.

The state media as was rightly observed has become a mouthpiece of the government. Instead of a public service, it has become a mirror reflecting only the government’s image. Its editorial line is an echo of the ruling party’s talking points.

Take for example the Guyana Chronicle; it serves no useful purpose other than regurgitating content being produced by the Department of Public Information.

In fact, the DPI, Guyana Times and all the other PPP surrogate news entities individually and collectively are doing a far greater, more professional job in selling the government than the Guyana Chronicle.

On any given day you read the Chronicle it is as clear as day that the paper lacks structure, direction, coordination and focus. It seems like the daily task of the editors there is to just produce a paper regardless of how original, credible and relevant the content is.

This is a travesty, but the Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo the super minister in President Ali’s Government spends endless time to critique the editorials and news articles of the Stabroek News and Kaieteur News at his weekly press conferences. He even goes as far as suggesting which organisations these newspapers should cover and what should be their focus. He demonstrates when probing questions are asked of him. He does not want to be accountable to the citizens, but rather control the narrative with his weekly rabble rousing. The VP is so incensed at the private newspapers that he descends into mudslinging and character assassination. Guyana is poorer with him at the helm of this nation.

The state media is not even serving the PPP/C well. When Jagdeo himself has had to resort to the Guyanese Critic to give exclusive interviews and announce major policy initiatives and plans tells you how bad things have gotten in the public information sector.

Like the Chronicle, the same could be said of NCN that cedes no place for even a positive story coming out of Congress Place or from the AFC. The airwaves both radio and television is dominated by PPPC messaging, even some of the broadcasters have donned Freedom House party colours.

It is instructive of how bad things are in Guyana when it comes to press freedom when the very countries that did so much to settle our political storms in 2020, are now prompted to speak to what has been becoming too much the norm in Guyana.  The list of abuses hurled at the independent press is long and troubling.  Though only a few entities qualify, by way of dedication to fearless duty, for the accolade of ‘independent’ their work has become increasingly endangered, and their existence squeezed into narrower and narrower corners.

The real press, the company of authentic professionals, has been locked out, hidden from, treated to a different standard.  The best that can be said is that it is a lower, more worrying standard; the worst is that it has been no standard at all, save for the unacceptable ugliness, for the obscene that exceeds civilized limits.

The PPPC Government is the leading culprit in the excesses meted out against the press, the jagged barbs that have become an inseparable part of the workbench of honest and hardworking journalists.  We at this publication should know, for our people have felt the brunt of the wickedness concocted, have been made special targets for what is grimy, what savages most claims of good governance, of ethical political leadership.

It is clear the PPPC Government has declared a virtual war on the few professionals in the local media stream, who seek to get to the bottom of substantive developments in the oil and gas sector.  The full truths swirling there under shrouds of secrecy are defended with frightening determination, passion, and energy.  The result is that there has been consistent Government callousness intended to intimidate, to chase away, and to decimate the ranks of those pressing for truths and facts.  Not what bolsters government stories, and boosts the image of leaders, but what are of nothing but the fullness of truths and facts.

When press freedoms, freedom of opinion, and freedom to work, are all subject to escalating indignity, then what is in motion is not democracy, but the stealthy march of heinous tyranny.

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• Editorial, governments, Kaieteur News, NCN, newspapers

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