Dear Editor,
It is embarrassing to see that the Stabroek News will be staging a protest at the Guyana International Conference Centre, Liliendaal, for the Commonwealth Finance Ministers Meeting on Monday. Failing to run its ‘business’ effectively caused the ads to be taken away from the newspapers and now it is seeking to take a petty matter to the CFMM when there are important matters to be discussed.
So many claim that there is no press freedom in Guyana and yet people are allowed to say and publish anything in the national newspapers and on television. Anyone can say anything about any topic without being chastised for it and yet some still cry foul.
The Stabroek News was given the reason for the withdrawal of ads which had to do with a matter of circulation. However, to date as far as I am aware the Stabroek News has done nothing to correct the problems. In fact the Editorial goes out of its way to show Government in a negative light because it is just bitter over the ads situation.
I think that the paper should concentrate on righting the wrongs and formalise a new strategy after which it should perhaps approach Government again. One cannot expect that if problems are cited in the withdrawal issue and they are not corrected that the ads would be returned.
The CFMM is a forum which will discuss serious issues and as such should not be used in such a cheap way. I believe that the newspaper is indeed in trouble to want to do this, but in not trying to solve the problems it has only itself to blame.
On another note, I have noticed that the Stabroek News has been publishing every day since the withdrawal in November. This therefore means that the paper is getting enough ads to keep it going. So with Government ads it would mean that a lot would probably not get published because with the current amount being adequate more would overwhelm it.
Yours faithfully,
Emily Patterson
Editor’s note
As we have stated from the outset neither the government nor anyone else knows the audited paid circulation of the three daily newspapers. We are the only newspaper to publish our audited circulation. We proposed that a member of the Audit Bureau of Circulation be brought to Guyana to carry out the necessary audit. We also proposed that an experienced advertising agency be retained to advise on which newspapers had the target audience for the kind of ads government placed. Together those would be the criteria for a rational allocation of ads. There was no response to this offer.
President Jagdeo also rejected a proposed from a regional media team to advise on setting up a fair system.
The complete withdrawal of all ads by 29 government ministries and agencies and state corporations from our newspaper cannot be a fair system. State advertisements should be allocated on a fair and transparent basis.
