Caribbean journalists have passed a resolution condemning the Guyana government’s withdrawal of state advertisements from the Stabroek News, deeming it “an attack on press freedom and an attempt to silence an independent newspaper.”
The resolution was unanimously adopted by the Fourth Biennial General Assembly of the Association of Caribbean Media Workers (ACM) in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago on Tuesday evening. It also instructed that the ACM General Assembly call on the Guyana government to adopt a fair system for the allocation of government advertisements in keeping with Article 7 of the Declaration of Chapultepec to which Guyana has subscribed.
The journalists noted in the resolution that the Bharrat Jagdeo led-administration had failed to take advantage of an offer from a team of regional media practitioners, headed by retired Barbadian newspaper publisher Harold Hoyte, which proposed “an equitable and transparent system for the allocation of advertisements to the newspapers in Guyana”.
The Guyana government has insisted that the withdrawal of the ads was based on economics and the need to capitalise on the widest possible circulation by advertising in two other dailies.
However, in their resolution, the regional journalists said that at least 29 government agencies, ministries and state corporations had withdrawn their advertisements from the Stabroek News since November 2006 and the Jagdeo administration “has ignored repeated editorials and other comments by the regional media criticising the withdrawal of advertisements … as an attack on press freedom”.
The resolution urged the government to re-think its position, adding that the “withdrawal of advertisements from the Stabroek News… is unanimously condemned as an attack on press freedom and an attempt to silence an independent newspaper”.
Newly-elected President of the ACM Wesley Gibbons told this newspaper by telephone yesterday that the resolution, which was one of two tabled on Tuesday evening at the ACM Fourth Biennial General Assembly, was accepted in principle.
The other resolution, also accepted in principle, called on Caricom to extend the role of the Caribbean Institute for Media and Communication (CARIMAC) in the training of regional journalists in non-campus territories.
The ACM in its resolution also urged CARIMAC to “reach out to non-campus territories by either utilising the distance education modalities that exist through UWI, or seek competent franchises as done by other international universities in the region, to offer its course, modules and programmes to non-campus territories and offer more flexibility towards certification and qualifications in acquiring media training.”
It also called on CARIMAC to impress on the Jamaica government, as well as other governments in Caricom and the UWI contributing countries to note the “increasing importance that media play in influencing and empowering Caribbean people in every fora available and they be encouraged to allocate adequate human resources as well as financial and technical resources to enable the UWI/CARIMAC to move from providing lip service and the imperative of using the media in a serious way to meet their UN Millennium Development Goals requirements”.
Meanwhile, a new executive was also elected to serve for the next biennium. Gibbons, who served as General Secretary in the last executive has been elected to serve as President. The First Vice President is Peter Richards of St Lucia; Second Vice President, Nita Ramcharran of Suriname; General Secretary, Anika Kentish of Antigua and Barbuda; Assistant General Secretary, Guy Delva of Haiti; and Committee Members are Canute James of Jamaica and Michael Bascombe of Grenada.
Delegates from 17 Caribbean countries attended the meeting which discussed among other things the state of the media in their respective countries.
