Trustworthiness in Journalism

Aug 20, 2026 Letters

Dear Editor,

Trust in journalism rests on two things: is the message believable, and is the messenger credible through professional conduct? Both matter in news reporting — and increasingly on social media too.

Eyewitness testimony

I recently watched a press conference held by Guyana’s President. He grew visibly hostile toward certain reporters, particularly those from private outlets, whenever asked about the Opposition Leader’s accusations or ministers’ conduct. Rather than answering, he attacked the questioner or the source of the story. The pattern was unmistakable — as if he’d have found a question easier to accept from an interviewer with a Harvard degree than from the one actually asking it.

Framing doubt through evidence

Does the President believe he owes no answers to non-state media? Especially on why two ministers haven’t been fired over the July 18, 2026 Barima ferry disaster, which killed more than 70 Guyanese and left three survivors charged with murder. Whether a Commission of Inquiry is warranted is a judgment call about risk and accountability — but that judgment can only be fair if questions are answered, not dodged.

Cause and effect

Questions about ministers who may have acted negligently, corruptly, or criminally aren’t just fair — they’re necessary. Dodging them, especially where lives were lost, looks like cover-up and signals indifference. At that same press conference, a respected journalist asked about the two ministers’ conduct; no real answer came. History is instructive: Ferdinand Marcos, Zine Ali, Hosni Mubarak, Suharto, Viktor Yanukovych, Slobodan Milošević — each dodged corruption questions for years until public trust collapsed. It wasn’t the corruption alone that ended them. It was the visible pattern of evasion, which tells people something is being hidden.

That said, this isn’t inevitable. Leaders in Azerbaijan, China, Hungary, and Russia have dodged corruption stories for decades and stayed in power — largely because they control the courts, security forces, and media, or face no real elections. What separates leaders who fell from those who didn’t wasn’t the corruption itself, but whether independent institutions — a free press, courts, opposition, real elections — stayed strong enough to keep the pressure on.

Call to civic reasoning

That’s the question for Guyana now. Hostility toward the press over questions of corruption is a warning sign, not a verdict. Source credibility — evaluating whether information is trustworthy and free of hidden agendas — is the backbone of responsible journalism. Lecturing a journalist on it, rather than answering the question, undermines both her right to ask and his duty to answer. Questioning an interviewer’s competence instead of addressing the substance is unbecoming of anyone leading a democracy.

Whether this leads to real accountability — through a Commission of Inquiry or otherwise — or fades into another forgotten scandal depends on one thing: whether Guyana’s institutions stay independent enough to keep asking the questions the President would rather avoid.

Regards,

M. Shabeer Zafar

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journalism, Letters, news reporting, professional conduct, SHABEER ZAFAR, Trustworthiness

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