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Media misuse

Nov 23, 2024 Editorial, News

…Editorial

 Kaieteur News –Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo is the happiest man in Guyana when he is abrasive.  Though a leader made of sand, he relishes delivering words with the texture of sandpaper.  What he pretends to be weekly press conferences have deteriorated into one-man brawls, ugly examples for citizens, and regular sessions of the sickness that is so pervasive.  As if in a race to prove who is bolder and brassier, President Irfaan Ali had his own press engagement last week to unleash his rage.  If President Ali’s action could be accepted at face value, his listeners were treated to an encounter that trashed them to pieces, left hanging their heads in shame.  Ministers of the government, engineers employed by the State, senior public servants were given a public whipping that they all should remember for a long time.  There is one condition for any of what President Ali said to mean anything.  He had to mean what he said, and he will act should things stay the same.

So that Guyanese are on the same page with us, there are no tears here for those that President Ali battered and bruised within an inch of their official existence.  Their record of failure has been long and there is little positive to say about them.  It is an indication of their uselessness, their costly presences around the jobs given to them.  We lay blame where such is due, which is with the group that he ordered to turn up at 05:30hrs last Tuesday.  There is the army of absent abusers of their positions, and the damage they have inflicted on the nation’s treasury and every citizen of this country.  Clearly, President Ali had a stomach full, and he certainly let loose with more than a mouthful.  As much as it was overdue, has its value (especially public relations value so precious to the PPPC Government), there are different ways, and better ways, to get messages across.  We respectfully urge this country’s still young president to familiarize himself with those, to seek counsel, so that he can come across more presidential, more in control of his faculties.

Truth be told, the president’s style and approach has its shock value, if he is not playing with Guyanese minds.  As said earlier, it also has its propaganda value, which the PPPC Government and its leaders and ministers never fail to exploit to the fullest for the maximum effect.  President Ali is not in the league of Vice President Jagdeo as yet, but he has shown that he is in love with the sledgehammer and bludgeon.  Both national leaders are always quick to point out the need to attract more foreign investors, but this is the crude leadership standard that they greet them with, reassuring them that the difficult are under control.  The irony of President Ali and Vice President Jagdeo is that their press conferences (engagement, encounters, whatever) are characterized by well broadcasted bluster and bravado when dealing with locals.  However, when the two leaders should be at their strongest and frankest, i.e., with foreign investors and partners, there is operating in secrecy, surrendering on their knees, and speaking in respectful tones.  They very quickly and efficiently find manners and mind their manners when foreigners are in the room.

The media is not engaged then, but blocked out.  When the media dares to ask pertinent questions on vital issues, both Ali and Jagdeo retreat behind walls of silence, or bash independent media professionals with verbal broadsides.  Both Ali and Jagdeo prefer the soft questions, the sweet subjects, that are not among the most concerning issues in the minds of Guyanese.  Guyanese taxpayers millions are misused to make friendly media men and women into spectacles of themselves.  Key information is twisted or withheld on crucial issues, like oil.  And when Ali and Jagdeo want to look good, they engage in these trash talking sessions that they say with a straight face are press conferences.  Guyanese are abused, standards are abused, a culture of media misuse with the resulting darkness and ignorance taking hold.  Leaders lead by example, governments govern with fidelity to principle.  When those are laughed at, then Guyanese get the press riots that they get.

(Media misuse)

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