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Did the GPA really need a 10-page thesis on press freedom?
Peeping Tom…
Kaieteur News- Let me begin by saying I have nothing against the Guyana Press Association (GPA). Truly. Some of my best friends are journalists—or at least, they were, until they read the GPA’s recent World Press Freedom Day statement and promptly fell into a coma. Now they communicate only in Morse code, tapping out requests for shorter sentences.
The statement in question, a sprawling, labyrinthine manifesto that could double as a sleep aid, raises an urgent question: “Did the entire GPA executive really sit around a table, read this thing, and nod in unanimous approval?” Or was it more of a “Well, someone wrote it, so… let’s just roll with it”?
I imagine the editing process went something like this:
Editor 1: “This is a bit… long.”
Editor 2: “We could trim some redundancies?”
Editor 3: “Nonsense! Add three more paragraphs about AI!”
Editor 4: (whispering) “Are we trying to hit a word count for a UNESCO grant…”
Buried beneath the statement’s avalanche of clauses, sub-clauses, and gratuitous references to international bodies lies what appears to be the GPA’s real beef: social media is not ‘real media’.
The GPA insists that only traditional journalists—those noble scribes who toil under the sacred banner of editorial guidelines—qualify as “media”. Everyone else—TikTokers, Facebook commentators, that guy who livestreams his lunch are mere “information consumers”.
This raises an obvious question: “Is the GPA afraid of social media?” Because, let’s be honest—if the crux of your 5,000-word treatise is “Hey, President Ali, don’t you dare lump us in with those unwashed Facebook trolls!”, then maybe, just maybe, you’re not fighting for press freedom so much as fighting for relevance.
The GPA rejects the President’s suggestion to redefine “media,” arguing that media are simply channels for content dissemination, not entities to be politically defined. It warns against conflating journalism with social media, emphasizing that professional journalism adheres to ethical standards distinct from casual content sharing.
The GPA’s argument hinges on a romanticized vision of journalism—one where grizzled reporters pound keyboards in newsrooms, muttering “Follow the money!” before dramatically hanging up on a corrupt source. Meanwhile, in the real world, a 19-year-old with an iPhone and a Facebook page breaks more stories than some legacy newspapers.
Does this mean every random with a smartphone is a journalist? Of course not. But does it mean the definition of media has expanded beyond the GPA’s comfort zone? Absolutely! That is a reality that the GPA will have to learn to accept.
The most delicious irony here is that the GPA, in its zeal to ‘protect’ press freedom, is inadvertently arguing for a more restrictive definition of who gets to participate in the media ecosystem. Social media cannot be ignored. The credibility of many of its reports may be open to question. But social media is a tide that the traditional media will ignore to its peril.
President Ali’s musings about AI and media regulation may indeed be misguided (or, as the GPA suggests, a Trojan horse for censorship). But if the GPA’s counterargument is “Actually, only we count as real media!”, then they’re playing the same exclusionary game—just with a fancier vocabulary.
Imagine if, in the 18th century, the printing press guild had declared: “Pamphleteers like Thomas Paine are NOT real media! Only licenced printers with quill-and-ink certification may disseminate news!” History would have laughed.
The GPA’s statement reads like a legal brief crossed with a doctoral thesis, which is a shame because its other core concerns—AI’s impact, government overreach, and press freedom—are important. But when your message is buried under an avalanche of verbosity, even your allies start skimming.
So, dear GPA, a humble plea: Next World Press Freedom Day, maybe try a tweet? Or at least a statement that doesn’t require readers to draft a living will before finishing.
(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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nice post , thank you for sharing.